Effects of impoverished environmental conditions on working memory performance

Abreu, Pascale Engel de; Puglisi, Marina Leite; Cruz-Santos, Anabela; Befi-Lopes, Débora Maria; Martin, Romain

doi:10.1080/09658211.2013.781186

Cited by 13 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 43 publications

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“…A closer look at Engel et al (2008) shows that while no differences were found by socioeconomic status on backward digit span or counting span when using a Bonferroni correction, the counting span results were at the p = .03 level, hinting there may be some possible biases. This trend was confirmed in further work by Engel de Abreu, Puglisi, Cruz-Santos, Befi-Lopes, and Martin (2014), who found that children with poor schooling, and presumably less practice at counting, had significantly lower counting spans than children with better schooling.…”

Section: Identification Of Childhood Sli Within Nonmainstream Dialectsupporting

confidence: 59%

Working memory performance in children with and without specific language impairment in two nonmainstream dialects of English

McDonald

Seidel

Hammarlund

et al. 2017

Applied Psycholinguistics

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Using speakers of either African American English or Southern White English, we asked whether a working memory measure was linguistically unbiased, that is, equally able to distinguish between children with and without specific language impairment (SLI) across dialects, with similar error profiles and similar correlations to standardized test scores. We also examined whether the measure was affected by a child's nonmainstream dialect density. Fifty-three kindergarteners with SLI and 53 typically developing controls (70 African American English, 36 Southern White English) were given a size judgment working memory task, which involved reordering items by physical size before recall, as well as tests of syntax, vocabulary, intelligence, and nonmainstream density. Across dialects, children with SLI earned significantly poorer span scores than controls, and made more nonlist errors. Span and standardized language test performance were correlated; however, they were also both correlated with nonmainstream density. After partialing out density, span continued to differentiate the groups and correlate with syntax measures in both dialects. Thus, working memory performance can distinguish between children with and without SLI and is equally related to syntactic abilities across dialects. However, the correlation between span and nonmainstream dialect density indicates that processing-based verbal working memory tasks may not be as free from linguistic bias as often thought. Additional studies are needed to further explore this relationship.

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Section: Identification Of Childhood Sli Within Nonmainstream Dialectsupporting

confidence: 59%

Working memory performance in children with and without specific language impairment in two nonmainstream dialects of English

McDonald

Seidel

Hammarlund

et al. 2017

Applied Psycholinguistics

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“…The Automated Working Memory Assessment (AWMA; Alloway, 2007) – a standardised, computer-based battery which assesses working memory according to the multicomponent model (Baddeley, 2000) – was used to provide a comprehensive assessment of the components of working memory. The AWMA was used in the studies by Blom et al (2014), Engel de Abreu (2011), Engel de Abreu et al (2014) and Smithson and Nicoladis (2013), and was employed here to allow for task comparability. It consists of three tests of each working memory component – complex tasks involving executive processing and simple tasks involving passive storage.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This has resulted in the suggestion that the negative effects of a low SES background and the positive effects of bilingualism may cancel one another out (Blom et al, 2014). Support for this comes from Engel de Abreu et al (2014) who found no effects of SES on two visuospatial working memory (processing) tasks or on a verbal storage task (Digit Recall) with a sample of 7- and 8-year olds. However, high SES children outperformed their low SES counterparts on a verbal working memory (processing) task.…”

Section: Background Factors That Influence Bilingualismmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…This is because a positive effect of higher SES on executive control functions has been demonstrated as early as infancy (Lawson, Hook, Hackman & Farah, 2016), while low SES has been associated with lower executive control in children, most likely due to reduced access to resources and stimulation (Mezzacappa, 2004; Morton & Harper, 2007; Noble, McCandliss & Farah, 2007; Noble, Norman & Farah, 2005). There is some evidence, however, that bilingual advantages on tasks drawing on inhibitory control are present regardless of SES background (Blom et al, 2014; Calvo & Bialystok, 2014; Engel, Santos & Gathercole, 2008; Engel de Abreu, Puglisi, Cruz-Santos, Befi-Lopes & Martin, 2014). This has resulted in the suggestion that the negative effects of a low SES background and the positive effects of bilingualism may cancel one another out (Blom et al, 2014).…”

Section: Background Factors That Influence Bilingualismmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A multilingual advantage in the components of working memory

2017

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This study compared working memory ability in multilingual young adults and their monolingual peers on four components of working memory (verbal and visuospatial storage, verbal and visuospatial processing). The sample comprised 39 monolingual English speakers, and 39 multilinguals, who spoke an African language as their first and third languages, and English as their second language, all with high levels of proficiency. The multilingual young adults came from lower socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds and possessed smaller English vocabularies than the monolinguals, features which make this group an under-researched population. Both when SES and verbal ability were and were not statistically controlled, there was evidence of a multilingual advantage in all of the working memory components, which was most pronounced in visuospatial processing. These findings support evidence from bilinguals showing cognitive advantages beyond inhibitory control, and suggest that multilingualism may influence the executive control system generally.

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“…O desempenho acadêmico é determinado por uma variedade de fatores, nomeadamente as oportunidades educacionais, o status socioeconômico, as aptidões sociais, os traços de personalidade e as capacidades cognitivas (e.g., Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997;Engel de Abreu, Puglisi, Cruz-Santos, Befi-Lopes, & Martin, 2014). As aptidões acadêmicas das crianças não parecem ser determinadas apenas pelas oportunidades de aprendizagem, mas são sobretudo influenciadas pelos processos cognitivos básicos individuais.…”

Section: Considerações Finaisunclassified

Processos Cognitivos Visuoespaciais e Ambiente Visual Circundante: Implicações Educacionais

Rodrigues

2016

Psic.: Teor. e Pesq.

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RESUMO Nesta revisão de literatura, abordamos a importância da atenção seletiva, da inibição e da memória de trabalho na aprendizagem das crianças. Começamos por apresentar as suas definições e principais mecanismos funcionais. Apresentamos igualmente conclusões de vários estudos que abordam a importância desses processos, sobretudo em tarefas visuoespaciais. Finalmente, abordamos o papel que o ambiente visual circundante desempenha na aprendizagem, chamando a atenção para uma lacuna que se verifica em grande parte dos estudos: a sua pouca validade ecológica. É também defendido que o ambiente visual externo deve ser considerado nos modelos explicativos dos processos cognitivos básicos. Conclui-se o trabalho alertando para a necessidade de se estudar de forma mais sistemática a relação entre estes dois elementos (cognição e ambiente).

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Effects of impoverished environmental conditions on working memory performance

Cited by 13 publications

References 43 publications

Working memory performance in children with and without specific language impairment in two nonmainstream dialects of English

Working memory performance in children with and without specific language impairment in two nonmainstream dialects of English

A multilingual advantage in the components of working memory

Processos Cognitivos Visuoespaciais e Ambiente Visual Circundante: Implicações Educacionais

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