ISSN : 1229-0718
Research shows that children’s abilities to inhibit thoughts and behaviors predict academic and social successes later in life. In addition, a child’s socioeconomic status (SES) is known to predict inhibitory control and general executive functions. However, careful examination of the literature revealed that several studies reporting these findings had the following limitations: (1) they were conducted in North and South America where the factor of race was not sufficiently controlled, (2) they focused on children in schooling years, and (3) they relied on comparing arbitrary groups divided by various SES criteria. The present study tested 78 Korean preschoolers aged 3–6 to examine the unique effects of SES on the development of inhibitory control in early childhood by controlling factors of age and verbal abilities. The results indicate that maternal education, measured in the total number of schooling years, uniquely predicted inhibitory control of Korean preschoolers. This corroborated previous findings, further suggesting that parental education is critical to the development of executive functions in early childhood regardless of race, age, and verbal abilities.
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