The development of cognitive skills and gains in academic school readiness for children from low-income families.
Open accessAbstract
This study examined developmental associations between growth in domain-general cognitive processes (working memory and attention control) and growth in domain-specific skills (emergent literacy and numeracy) across the pre-kindergarten year, and their relative contributions to kindergarten reading and math achievement. One hundred sixty-four Head Start children (44% African American or Latino; 57% female) were followed longitudinally. Path analyses revealed that working memory and attention control predicted growth in emergent literacy and numeracy skills during the pre-kindergarten year, and furthermore, that growth in these domain-general cognitive skills made unique contributions to the prediction of kindergarten math and reading achievement, controlling for growth in domain-specific skills. These findings extend research highlighting the importance of working memory and attention control for academic learning, demonstrating the effects in early childhood, prior to school entry. We discuss the implications of these findings for pre-kindergarten programs, particularly those designed to reduce the school readiness gaps associated with socio-economic disadvantage.
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Increases in vocabulary, language ability, and competence with numbers, letters, and words facilitate executive function abilities.
“increases in vocabulary, language ability, and competence with numbers, letters, and words will facilitate executive function abilities (Ferrer et al. 2007, Welsh et al. 2010).”
From School Readiness and Self-Regulation: A Developmental Psychobiological Approach (2015) · cites this paper as Welsh et al. 2010
The Discussion section, “Reciprocal Relations with Numeracy Skills” (page unavailable), reports that early numeracy skills predicted later executive functions. It explicitly says emergent literacy skills did not predict growth in executive functions, and does not establish that increases in vocabulary or language ability facilitate them. (LLM, conf=0.90)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredExecutive function abilities facilitate the acquisition of knowledge.
“Just as executive function abilities will facilitate the acquisition of knowledge”
From School Readiness and Self-Regulation: A Developmental Psychobiological Approach (2015) · cites this paper as Welsh et al. 2010
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Cites
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School Readiness and Self-Regulation: A Developmental Psychobiological Approach
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- Authors
- Welsh, J. A., Nix, R. L., Blair, C., Bierman, K. L., & Nelson, K. E.
- Affiliations
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Educational Psychology
- Published
- 2010
- Volume
- 102
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 43-53
- ISSN
- 0022-0663 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-2176
- PMC
- PMC2856933
- OpenAlex
- W1976009192
- Cited by
- 775
- References
- 14
- Citations by year
- 2026: 25 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 45 · 2022: 56 · 2021: 63 · 2020: 61 · 2019: 73 · 2018: 67 · 2017: 53 · 2016: 60 · 2015: 55 · 2014: 55 · 2013: 33 · 2012: 27
- FWCI
- 135.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of Educational Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- Funders
- Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD046064)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Education › Early Childhood Education and Development
- Physical Sciences › Mathematics › Statistics and Probability › Cognitive and developmental aspects of mathematical skills
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Keywords
- working memory, attentional control, emergent literacy, emergent numeracy, school readiness, low-income children, Head Start, pre-kindergarten, domain-specific skills, socioeconomic deprivation, early childhood cognitive development
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