The aim of this study has been to analyze the relationship between psychological variables and school performance in preschool children. A collection of cognitive and behavioural variables were selected, that according to the most current bibliography are related to student learning, with the goal of identifying the factors that appear to influence educational performance in childhood. The final goal would be to try to prevent future performance problems by means of identifying early these variables in the children that present low performance. The sample is composed of 47 children: 23 children with high performance and 24 with low performance. The instruments used were the Kauffman Brief Intelligence Test, the EHPAP (Spanish version of ACFS de Lidz y Jepsen, 2003) and a questionnaire about metacognition. The results showed significant differences between both groups in the profile of skills, in behavioral variables, and in the use of metacognitive strategies. However, both groups present a similar learning potential. ResumenEl objetivo ha sido analizar la relación entre variables psicológicas y rendimiento escolar en niños preescolares. Se ha seleccionado un conjunto de variables cognitivas y conductuales, que según la bibliografía más actualizada se relacionan con el aprendizaje escolar, con el fin de identificar los factores que parecen influir en el rendimiento educativo en la etapa infantil. La meta final sería intentar prevenir problemas de rendimiento futuros mediante la identificación temprana de estas variables en los niños que parecen presentar bajo rendimiento. La muestra ha estado compuesta por 47 niños: 23 con alto rendimiento y 24 con bajo rendimiento. Se han utilizado medidas de inteligencia (K-BIT), potencial de aprendizaje (EHPAP) y metacognición. Los resultados muestran que los grupos difieren en el perfil de habilidades, en variables conductuales y en la utilización de estrategias metacognitivas. Sin embargo, todos presentan un potencial de aprendizaje similar.

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The objective of this study was to test the usefulness of dynamic assessment for determining cognitive abilities such as classification, auditory and visual memory, pattern sequences, perspective taking, verbal planning, learning potential, and metacognition in immigrant preschool children with and without competence in the dominant language (Spanish). One hundred seventy-six preschoolchildren were distributed in three groups according to the cultural background of their parents (native Spanish/Spanish-speaking immigrants/non-Spanish speaking immigrants). The children were assessed by means of the K-BIT, the Application of Cognitive Functions Scale (ACFS), and metacognition, language competence and academic performance estimates. The results show that although there are initial differences in execution between the two groups (Spanish/immigrants), there are no differences with regard to learning potential. The study also demonstrates the importance of behavioral, attitudinal, and metacognitive variables in children's test execution and academic performance. C 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.Over the last decade, Spain has become one of the principal destinations of international migration. One indication of this is that in the academic year 2007-2008, students with foreign nationality in general, non-university education represented 9.4% of the total, and 124,211 of these were preschool children (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2008).

There were intergroup differences and discrepancies between the direct performance and indirect measures in children with ASD, and these must be explained. For this reason, future studies could seek to explain the cause of these discrepancies with a greater number of measures for each of the skills.

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