Penn and CHOP Researchers Track Working Memory From Childhood Through Adolescence

Working memory, the ability to hold information in your mind, think about it and use it to guide behavior, develops through childhood and adolescence and is key for successful performance at school and work. Previous research with young children has documented socioeconomic disparities in performance on tasks of working memory. Now, a new longitudinal study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and West Chester University has found that differences in working memory that exist at age 10 persist through the end of adolescence. The study also found that parents' education, one common measure of socioeconomic status, is related to children's performance on tasks of working memory and that neighborhood characteristics, another common measure of socioeconomic status, are not. The study was led by then graduate student Daniel Hackman and professor Martha Farah , both of the Department of Psychology in Penn's School of Arts & Sciences. They collaborated with Laura Betancourt, Nancy Brodsky and Hallam Hurt of CHOP , Daniel Romer of Penn's Annenberg Public Policy Center and Robert Gallop of West Chester University. It was published in the journal Child Development .