Children's development can depend on many factors, one of the most important being socioeconomic status (SES). SES can be defined as a multidimensional construct, which includes measures of social factors such as power, prestige, hierarchical social status and economic resources (Hackman and Farah, 2009). Child development can be studied from multiple dimensions such as physical, mental, social and emotional development, among others. For the purposes of this study, I will focus on how socioeconomic status affects a child's cognitive development. Cognitive development is the development of memory, reasoning, problem solving, and thinking skills in a child. A study was conducted in the United Kingdom on the socioeconomic status and intelligence of children by environment. In previous studies investigating genes and intelligence, the results varied from study to study. Some studies have found that in low-SES families, genetic factors have less variance in intelligence; the opposite is found for high SES families (Hanscombe, Trzaskowski, Haworth, Davis, Dale, & Plomin, 2012). Other studies have reported an effect in the opposite direction. Because findings on intelligence and genes were varied, researchers looked at environmental factors that might influence intelligence in children. In the research they used 8716 pairs of twins from the Twins Early Development Study and replicated the moderating effect of SES on children's intelligence at ages 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 12 and 14 to find less heritability in lower SES families. In their results, they found greater variance in intelligence in low-SES families, but minimal evidence of genetic interaction across all eight ages. It turned out that there was no s...... half of the paper ....../science/article/pii/S1364661308002635Hackmen, D., & Farah, M. Socioeconomic status and the developing brain. Trends in Cognitive Science, 13, 65-73. Retrieved May 1, 2014, from http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/science/article/pii/S1364661308002635Hanscombe KB, Trzaskowski M, Haworth CMA, Davis OSP, Dale PS, et al. (2012) Socioeconomic status (SES) and children's intelligence (IQ): in a representative UK sample SES moderates the environmental, not genetic, effect on IQ. PLoS UNO 7(2): e30320. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0030320Osler, M., Avlund, K., & Mortensen3, EL Early-life socioeconomic position, cognitive development, and cognitive change from young adulthood to middle age. European Journal of Public Health, 23, 974-980. Retrieved May 1, 2014, from http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezproxy.lib.uh.edu/science/article/pii/S1364661308002635