Effect of parental socio-educational level on memory and attentional measures in children

In developmental neuropsychology, information about the influence of educational variables on executive and memory development is limited. This is particularly surprising when considering the adult literature regarding the social and cultural effects on cognitive performances, which provide evidence that groups with higher levels of education achieve better on most neuropsychological tests (Ostrosky, Ardila, & Rosselli, 1999). The aim of this study was to analyze the relation between parents’ educational level and executive, attentional, memory and intellectual measures. Memory tasks (working and episodic memory), executive (inhibition and switching), attentional (alertness and selective attentional task) and intellectual tasks (verbal and non verbal subtests of WISC-III) were individually administered to 96 children divided according to 2 variables: age (6 and 10 years old) and parent’s educational level (University, High School and Elementary Education). Results showed an expected significant association between age and performance on all cognitive tasks. There was also a significant effect of parents’ educational level on most verbal tasks performed by children (including memory and verbal intellectual subtests) but also on various executive and attentional tasks (alertness, switching and inhibition tasks). Results confirmed that educational variables significantly influence children cognitive performances and not for only intelligence and verbal tasks, and emphasizes the need of further studies to specify the influence of education on the development of cognition.