Parental education has been consistently linked with variations in children’s intellectual development, suggesting a potential intergenerational transmission of cognitive traits. In parallel, the Raven Progressive Matrices (RPM) test has long been regarded as a robust measure of fluid intelligence to capture innate cognitive abilities. There is some evidence of inter-relations between the development of cognition and mental health in early childhood. In this study we investigate the dynamics between parental education, Raven scores, and children’s mental health, aiming to elucidate potential underlying mechanisms shaping cognitive outcomes. We use data from Understanding Society, the UK Household Longitudinal Study, examining a unique subsample of around 1,700 children aged 10 to 15, who responded to the RPM test during wave 10 (2018- 2019). Children’s mental health is measured by the Total Difficulties Score obtained from implementing the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) to the parents of these children when they were 8 years old. Structural equation modelling was employed separately for mothers and fathers to analyse the direct and indirect pathways linking parental education (our main explanatory variable), children’s mental health (our mediating variable), and Raven scores (our variable of interest), controlling for child, parental and household characteristics. Results show a statistically significant mediation effect of children’s mental health from maternal education on test scores. The direct effect of maternal education on child cognition was the strongest association about 20 times the magnitude of the indirect effect, which was also significant. The mediated proportion of the total effect is 0.04. No mediation effect was observed from paternal education. This research contributes to a better understanding of pathways to cognitive development shedding light on additional roles child’s mental health may play.

Co-author

Dr Edith Aguirre, University of Essex