The association between socioeconomic position and working memory may therefore be biased when tasks measuring different aspects of working memory are combined into composite measures. However, low income children living in rural areas had disproportionately lower visuospatial (relative to verbal) working memory scores, whilst low income children living in urban areas had equal verbal and visuospatial working memory scores. Indeed, it has been found that children from low income groups have lower overall working memory scores compared to children from high income groups. This may, in part, account for the different findings relating to the association between socioeconomic position and working memory. the Backwards Digit Recall (BDR) task), and others combining both types of task into a composite score. a forward’s spatial recall task), some using tasks that require the processing of stored information (e.g. There is inconsistency in this previous research investigating socioeconomic position and working memory, with some using tasks that rely primarily on storage (e.g. However, other studies have found that socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with lower working memory ability. Several observational studies find socioeconomic position to be unrelated to children’s working memory. Socioeconomic position refers to the social and economic factors that determine what position an individual holds in society. Working memory has strong associations with different learning outcomes, including mathematical performance and broad reading abilities. In mathematics, working memory is required to hold solutions to intermediate steps whilst processing the remaining steps, and when reading working memory is required to keep relevant speech sounds in mind, match them with corresponding letters, and combine them to read words. Working memory is essential for successful engagement in classroom activities, including the ability to remember and follow directions and instructions, and to engage effectively with learning and problem-solving. Working memory is a limited capacity system that stores and processes information over short time periods to support ongoing cognitive activity. Future research considering the possible mechanisms behind associations between ethnicity and working memory, and mechanisms by which socioeconomic position differentially influences working memory performance for different ethnic groups would shed further light on this important topic. Where possible, ethnic-specific measures of socioeconomic position should be developed and applied for studies like these. These findings show the importance of separating out different ethnic groups when investigating associations between socioeconomic position and cognitive function, and that researchers need to be mindful when applying socioeconomic measures across ethnic groups. Finally, we found evidence for a socioeconomic gradient in working memory for White British children, but this was considerably reduced in Pakistani children. We also found substantial differences in working memory between nine ethnic groups that varied by working memory task, where the difference between groups was equivalent to an age difference of between 6 and 24 months. We found a strong association between socioeconomic group at birth and working memory at age 7–10 years, where the difference between the least and most deprived socioeconomic groups was equivalent to at least a 1-year age difference. To account for potential problems in applying socioeconomic measures across different ethnic groups, we then examined associations using an ethnic-specific socioeconomic measure within the ethnic majority group (White British) and the largest ethnic minority group (Pakistani). We investigated children’s working memory ( n = 15,154) by socioeconomic group, using a latent class measure of family socioeconomic position, and then by ethnic group. Therefore, there is a need to understand the potential associations between socioeconomic position, ethnicity, and different aspects of children’s working memory. Further, there are very few studies about children’s working memory differences across and within different ethnic groups. Some studies have investigated the associations between socioeconomic position and working memory, however none have examined this across potentially dissociable aspects of working memory. Working memory is a limited capacity system that stores and processes information over short time periods and is essential for learning new information.
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