ArticleDevelopmental science2022
Language development as a mechanism linking socioeconomic status to executive functioning development in preschool.
Article in Developmental science, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 59 citations in OpenAlex.
- Annual Research Review: Associations of socioeconomic status with cognitive function, language ability, and academic achievement in youth: a systematic review of mechanisms and protective factors.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2025Pooled it
- Examining the relationship between language development, executive function, and screen time: A systematic review.PloS one · 2024Pooled it
- Positive Parenting and Early Childhood Cognition: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2023Pooled it
- Specific Early Childhood Experiences Predict Executive Function Skills During Later Childhood and Adolescence: Evidence from the ECHO Cohort.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2026Article
- Socioeconomic Differences in Cognitive Ability Across Childhood and Adolescence: An Investigation of Genetic, Individual, and Environmental Factors.Journal of Intelligence · 2026Article
- Cognitive Control Skills Are Related to Ambiguity Awareness in French-Learning 5-to-6-Year-Olds: Implications for Reading Development.Cognitive science · 2025Article
- Preschool musicality is associated with school-age communication abilities through genes related to rhythmicity.NPJ science of learning · 2025Article
- The role of socioeconomic status in shaping associations between sensory association cortex and prefrontal structure and implications for executive function.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2025Article
- 24-hour movement behaviors and cognitive ability in preschool children: A compositional and isotemporal reallocation analysis.PloS one · 2025Article
- The effect of unconditional cash transfers on maternal assessments of children's early language and socioemotional development: Experimental evidence from U.S. families residing in poverty.Developmental psychology · 2024Article
- Mothers with low incomes view both individual and structural interventions as potentially helpful for supporting early child development.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Learning to Listen: Changes in Children's Brain Activity Following a Listening Comprehension Intervention.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Maternal education prospectively predicts child neurocognitive function: An environmental influences on child health outcomes study.Developmental psychology · 2024Article
- Acetaminophen use during pregnancy: is there a problem?Pediatric research · 2024Article
- Unveiling the cognitive network organization through cognitive performance.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Language processing following childhood poverty: Evidence for disrupted neural networks.Brain and language · 2024Article
- Language Distance Moderates the Effect of a Mixed-Language Environment on New-Word Learning for 4-Year-Old Children.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Interplay of socioeconomic status, cognition, and school performance in the ABCD sample.NPJ science of learning · 2024Article
- Conversation disruptions in early childhood predict executive functioning development: A longitudinal study.Developmental science · 2024Article
- Verbal and non-verbal skills in early childhood: dimensionality, developmental trajectories, and gender differences.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is related to disparities in the development of both language and executive functioning (EF) skills. Emerging evidence suggests that language development may precede and provide necessary scaffolding for EF development in early childhood. The present preregistered study investigates how these skills co-develop longitudinally in early childhood and whether language development explains the relationship between SES and EF development. A socioeconomically diverse sample of 305 children completed repeated assessments of language (sentence comprehension) and EF (cognitive flexibility, behavioral inhibition, and cognitive inhibition) at four waves spaced 9 months apart from ages 3 to 5 years. Bivariate latent curve models with structured residuals were estimated to disaggregate between-person and within-person components of stability and change. Results revealed bidirectional relationships between language and EF across all waves. However, at 3 years, language comprehension more strongly predicted EF than the reverse; yet by 5 years, the bidirectional effects across domains did not significantly differ. Children from higher-SES backgrounds exhibited higher initial language and EF skills than children from lower-SES families, though SES was not associated with either rate of growth. Finally, early language-mediated the association between SES and early EF skills, and this model outperformed a reverse direction mediation. Together, results suggest that EF development is driven by early language development, and that SES disparities in EF are explained, at least in part, by early differences in language comprehension. These findings have implications for early interventions to support children's language skills as a potential pathway to improving early EF development.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.