Kids performance at school depends on parents' education

How educated you are actually decides the performance of your kids at schools, said a research.

Education of parents is directly related to performance of kids on tasks related to working memory.

Working memory - the ability to hold information in your mind, think about it, and use it to guide behaviour - develops through childhood and adolescence, and is key for successful performance at school and work.

The study also found that differences in working memory that exist at the age of 10 years, persist through the end of adolescence.

"Understanding the development of disparities in working memory has implications for education," said Daniel Hackman, a post-doctoral scholar at University of Pittsburgh, US.

The researchers studied more than 300 10-13 years old students from urban public and private schools associated with religious organisations over four years.

Neither parents' education nor living in a disadvantaged neighbourhood was found to be associated with the rate of growth in working memory across the four-year period.

Lower parental education was found to be tied to differences in working memory that emerged by age 10 and continued through adolescence.

However, neighbourhood characteristics were not related to working memory performance, the findings showed.

"Our findings highlight the potential value of programmes that promote developing working memory early as a way to prevent disparities in achievement," Hackman said.

The study appeared in the journal Child Development.