Profiles of academic and cognitive abilities differ in younger and older children from diverse socioeconomic neighbourhoods
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Objective: Research indicates that socioeconomic status (SES) influences developmental outcomes, particularly in language, executive functions, and intelligence, though findings have been mixed. This study examines the relationship between academic, cognitive and intellectual abilities in a cross-section of children at two age levels in low-SES vs. high-SES schools. Method: We administered a computerised battery of tests to 46 children in Grade Two (youngest 6.9 years old) and 67 children in Grade Six (oldest 12.4 years old) across four primary schools from low-SES and high-SES neighbourhoods. The test battery comprised two academic ability tests, five cognitive ability tests, and two intelligence tests. Results: In Grade Two, the low-SES group showed disadvantages on all measures except the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task and Choice Reaction Time. In Grade Six, while academic differences persisted between SES groups, cognitive differences were limited to the Wisconsin Card Sorting Task, where the high-SES group performed better than the low-SES group. Conclusions: Though our results pertain to cross-sectional data using neighbourhood indices of SES, our findings contrast with previous research showing broad and pervasive disadvantages associated with lower SES. Future research should further examine the potential differences and similarities in developmental outcomes across SES groups using longitudinal methods.
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Families lacking formal music training may adopt compensatory strategies, emphasizing quantity of involvement over quality, which explains the negative relationship between parental artistic ability and student engagement.
“However, the negative correlation between parental artistic ability and student engagement suggests that families lacking formal training may adopt compensatory strategies, emphasizing quantity of involvement over quality [55].”
From Attitudes and Behaviors toward traditional music among Chinese students: the role of individual, family, and school factors (2026) · cites this paper as [55]
The Results and Discussion passages address socioeconomic differences in children’s academic and cognitive abilities, not parental artistic ability or student engagement. Searches for music training, a negative correlation, and compensatory involvement found no passage addressing the claim; page numbers were unavailable in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.78)
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“In relation to academic outcomes, SES has been shown to predict absenteeism, school grades, and the probability of dropping out of high school (Sirin, 2005; von Stumm et al., 2020).”
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
- Authors
- Baughman, F. D., Cook, S. A., Treasure, S. K., Morley, A., Dauer, E., & Haywood, D.
- Affiliations
- Curtin University (AU)
- University of Technology Sydney (AU)
- Corresponding author
- Baughman, Frank D.
- Venue
- Australian Journal of Psychology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2024-12-09
- Volume
- 77
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 2435318-2435318
- ISSN
- 0004-9530 (ISSN-L)
- 1742-9536
- PMC
- PMC12218433
- OpenAlex
- W4405174858
- Cited by
- 2
- References
- 5
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1
- FWCI
- 0.66
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Australian Journal of Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- OPUS - Open Publications of UTS Scholars (University of Technology Sydney) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Funders
- MASCC Cognition Fellowship Recipient
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Social Sciences › Education › Early Childhood Education and Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Neuropsychology and Physiological Psychology › Developmental and Educational Neuropsychology
- Keywords
- socioeconomic status, neighborhood socioeconomic status, academic ability, cognitive ability, intelligence, executive function, language development, age differences, elementary school students
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