IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/geronb/v74y2019i8p1356-1365..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

School Performance and Educational Attainment as Early-Life Predictors of Age-Related Memory Decline: Protective Influences in Later-Born Cohorts

Author

Listed:
  • Sara Pudas
  • Michael Rönnlund
  • Angela Gutchess

Abstract

Objectives Evidence is accumulating that early-life characteristics and experiences contribute significantly to differences in cognitive aging. This study investigated whether school performance at age 12 predicted late-life level and rate of memory change over 15–25 years, and whether its potential protective influence on memory change was mediated by educational attainment or income. Methods Latent growth curve models were fitted to 15–25 year longitudinal memory data from a population-based sample, stratified on age cohorts (n = 227, born 1909–1935; n = 301, born 1938–1954). Results A latent-level school grade variable significantly predicted both memory level and slope in later-born cohorts. Higher grades were associated with higher level and reduced decline, measured between ages 45 and 70 years, on average. In the earlier-born cohorts, grades predicted memory level, but not slope, measured between ages 66 and 81 years. Follow-up analyses indicated that the protective influence of higher school grades in later-born cohorts was partially mediated by educational attainment, but independent of income. Discussion The results suggest that higher childhood school performance is protective against age-related cognitive decline in younger or later-born cohorts, for which further education has been more accessible. Education may exert such influence through increased cognitive reserve or more well-informed health- and lifestyle decisions.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara Pudas & Michael Rönnlund & Angela Gutchess, 2019. "School Performance and Educational Attainment as Early-Life Predictors of Age-Related Memory Decline: Protective Influences in Later-Born Cohorts," The Journals of Gerontology: Series B, The Gerontological Society of America, vol. 74(8), pages 1356-1365.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:74:y:2019:i:8:p:1356-1365.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/geronb/gby137
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Sörman, Daniel Eriksson & Stenling, Andreas & Sundström, Anna & Rönnlund, Michael & Vega-Mendoza, Mariana & Hansson, Patrik & Ljungberg, Jessica K., 2021. "Occupational cognitive complexity and episodic memory in old age," Intelligence, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    2. Francesca Gelfo & Laura Petrosini, 2022. "Environmental Enrichment Enhances Cerebellar Compensation and Develops Cerebellar Reserve," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-18, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:geronb:v:74:y:2019:i:8:p:1356-1365.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.