Open AccessEarly Pubertal Timing Mediates the Association between Low Socioeconomic Status and Poor Attention and Executive Functioning in a Diverse Community Sample of Adolescents
Author(s) -
Allison Stumper,
Naoise Mac Giollabhui,
Lyn Y. Abramson,
Lauren B. Alloy
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of youth and adolescence
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.883
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1573-6601
pISSN - 0047-2891
DOI - 10.1007/s10964-020-01198-x
Subject(s) - socioeconomic status , psychology , developmental psychology , association (psychology) , health psychology , executive functions , structural equation modeling , clinical psychology , cognition , demography , public health , psychiatry , population , medicine , statistics , nursing , mathematics , sociology , psychotherapist
Low socioeconomic status (SES) may be associated with earlier pubertal timing and impaired attention and executive function (EF) in youth; however, whether pubertal timing mediates the relation between SES and attention or executive functioning remains unclear. Structural equation models tested concurrent and prospective relations between SES, pubertal timing, and attention and executive functioning measures in a gender and racially diverse sample of adolescents (N = 281, 45.6% male, 50.5% White/Caucasian, 46.3% Black/African American, 3.2% Biracial/other, and 44.5% low SES; complete data were not available on some measures). Youth from low SES families experienced earlier pubertal timing, and this accelerated development was associated with worse performance on attention and executive functioning tasks, both concurrently and longitudinally. These findings highlight a pathway by which youth from low socioeconomic backgrounds may develop worse attention and executive functioning abilities during adolescence.