IQ and working memory are reliable predictors of academic achievement at the beginning of school when domain knowledge is not controlled¶
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Evidence · 1 study · associationalr2·q2
Currency · newest study 2017 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person
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q2 i? In hierarchical regression analyses, both WMC and intelligence explained a significant amount of additional variance in all measures of academic achievement at the very beginning of school, after controlling for age, sex, and SES. → Schneider Wolfgang 2017
Evidence¶
Schneider Wolfgang 2017¶
Schneider Wolfgang, Niklas Frank. (2017). Intelligence and Verbal Short-Term Memory/Working Memory: Their Interrelationships from Childhood to Young Adulthood and Their Impact on Academic Achievement. Journal of Intelligence. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence5020026
q2 · i? · associational · r2
Hierarchical regression analyses of the LOGIC longitudinal sample (assessments at ages 6, 8, 10, 18, 23) predicting reading, spelling, and math, with multiple imputation for missing data. The article reports that "IQ and WM turned out to be reliable predictors of academic achievement" when domain knowledge was not included.
"As a main result of various regression analyses, IQ and WM turned out to be reliable predictors of academic achievement, both in early and later developmental stages, when previous domain knowledge was not included as additional predictor."
Discussion¶
Related Claims¶
- Academic vocabulary is directly related to fifth-grade geometric skills over and above arithmetic skills — related
- Non-verbal intelligence measures (Raven, WISC Block Design) are non-significant math predictors when well-specified spatial and memory measures are in the model — reports the opposite
- Preschool working memory–flexibility predicts later math achievement, especially in Grade 3 — related
- Verbal working memory predicts oral reading fluency in children with and without ADHD — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Executive function measures predict early mathematics achievement over and above reading ability and IQ — related
- IQ, short-term memory and study habits each correlate positively and significantly with academic achievement in both 3rd and 4th grade — related
- Full-scale IQ predicts reading comprehension more strongly than word reading, and working memory and processing speed remain significant predictors after IQ is controlled — related
- Kindergarten visual processing uniquely predicts grade-one early mathematics after controlling for prior mathematics and general cognitive abilities — related
- Executive skills, but not nonverbal IQ, at age 3–4 predict preschool counting and number knowledge — related
- Kindergarten logical thinking correlates with arithmetic but does not explain unique variance once other predictors are included — related
- Phonological awareness and verbal working memory are the most consistently unique domain general predictors of grade 1 math outcomes — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Working memory, processing speed, and verbal comprehension weaknesses are shared across reading and math deficits — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Complexity of children's naturalistic memory reports predicts reading ability over and above IQ — related
- Longitudinal evidence shows spatial ability predicts STEM educational and occupational outcomes beyond mathematical and verbal ability — related
- Neither IQ nor WMC significantly predicted early mathematics when both were in the same model, explaining only about 5% of variance — reports the opposite
- Teacher reports of noncognitive skills add predictive power beyond baseline IQ for most school outcomes — related
- In Grade 3, both problem solving and arithmetical facts are predicted by the preschool WM–flexibility component — related
- Results provide no support for the IQ-achievement discrepancy model of dyslexia; non-verbal IQ correlated with all Year-1 language measures — related
- When previous academic achievement is controlled, intelligence predicts only later reading comprehension and age-10 mathematics, and WMC predicts nothing additionally — related
- Previous domain knowledge accounts for most of the variance in later achievement, considerably reducing the predictive impact of IQ and WM — related
- Verbal and spatial working memory, and verbal attention span, explain unique variance in Coding beyond motor speed, symptom severity, and IQ — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
- Neither first-grade whole number magnitude nor arithmetic knowledge uniquely predicted eighth-grade reading achievement — related
- Executive function and spatial skills jointly predict 70% of the variance in age-4 mathematics performance without an explicit number-knowledge measure — related
- Verbal WM correlates with intelligence but visuospatial WM does not in kindergarten children — related
- Skill-specific genetic variance in working memory and processing speed predicts reading components — related
- The best math-predicting model is specific to mathematics; reading requires a different model — related
- Previous domain knowledge did not affect e-learning text comprehension, directly or as a moderator — related
- Grade level, nonverbal intelligence, and working memory predicted mathematics achievement, explaining 88% of intercept variance but only 16-22% of slope variance — related
- Addition fluency strongly predicts third-grade multiplication fluency, and a significant working memory association emerges after controlling for addition fluency — related
- The central executive component of working memory is the most important domain-general predictor of later-grade mathematics achievement — related
- Among children below 80 IQ in the Providence grammar schools, only one of 220 made a mark better than C — a narrower finding that bears on this claim
Page metadata
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
type |
claim |
id |
iq-and-wm-predict-early-academic-achievement |
title |
IQ and working memory are reliable predictors of academic achievement at the beginning of school when domain knowledge is not controlled |
description |
IQ and working memory are reliable predictors of academic achievement at the beginning of school when domain knowledge is not controlled |
status |
review |
evidence_strength |
moderate |
newest_evidence |
2017 |
generated |
by process:wiki-ingest on 2026-10-16 |
trust |
unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content |
sources |
1 — schneider-wolfgang-2017 |
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