Parental socio-educational influence on executive measures and socio-adaptative behaviours in preschooler

The influence of educational variables on cognitive development, and particularly on the development of executive functions, remains poorly understood. In this study, we examined the parental socio-educational influence on both executive functioning and social/emotional behaviours in preschoolers. We administered to 77 children (2 age groups: 4 and 5-year-old) divided into two educational levels (HL vs. LL, i.e. High Level vs. Low Level of parental socio-educational status) several tasks measuring different aspects of the executive functioning (cognitive flexibility, inhibition, logico-deductive reasoning, and working memory). Questionnaires were also completed by the teaching staff in order to assess the children’s social (e.g., loneliness), emotional (e.g., anxiety), and adaptative (e.g., tolerance) behaviours at school. Results reveal that children from high socio-educational status performed significantly better on some specific verbal (fluency, verbal reasoning) and non-verbal executive tasks (deductive reasoning, inhibition) than children from lower socio-educational status (ps<.05). On the other hand, no significant socio-educational effect was found for working memory and cognitive flexibility. Regarding their social, emotional, and adaptative behaviours, LL children did not significantly differ from HL children, except for the anxiety scale, in which LL children were described as less confident than their HL peers. So, our results confirm that educational variables can significantly influence the development of specific executive functions, and that this can already be observed in preschool children. On the contrary, regarding the socio-adaptative behaviours, our results indicate that the parental socio-educational status does not seem to have a significant influence on the preschoolers’ behaviour at school.