Investigation On Cognitive Ability And Its Influence Factors Of Middle School Students From Rural Boarding School

Background:In recent years, with the implementation of family planning policy and the change of fertility concept, China’s population growth rate has been effectively controlled, and the number of school-age children declined, especially in rural areas. And along with the advancement of urbanization, the rural labor force has been migrating to cities. Then education problem of the left-behind children in rural areas was highlighted, making the boarding school education which occupied the most of compulsory education in rural areas became a hot spot of society. As boarding schools can optimize education resources, improve the teaching level, ensure the fairness of education, it has become an effective measure which received widespread support among the people. Now, the boarding schools in rural areas is developing rapidly, but due to reasons such as the insufficient intake of dietary and so on, the nutrition level of the rural boarding school students still exist great gap with the students in cities. Children and adolescence are a critical period of growth and cognitive function development, and the development of cognition in this period is closely associated with the ability to learn and the contribution to society in future, so it has a very important practical significance to test the adolescent’s cognitive function. Now, the current domestic evaluation research of the cognitive development of children and adolescent limited to a single index test and there is still scarce system and large scale research of the adolescent’s cognition.ObjectiveTo study the average level of cognitive ability and its influence factors of the rural boarding middle school students. To study the anemia and iron deficiency of the middle school students in rural boarding school, and explore influences of iron deficiency on cognitive and academic performance of students. And to provide data support for the implementation of nutrition intervention measures.MethodBased on the stratified cluster random sampling method, a total of 3691 first grade junior middle school students with an average age of 13.4±1.0yrs from 33 boarding schools were selected. The basic information were investigated including the student’s name, gender, date of birth, nationality, family population, the parents’age, the parents’education and occupation. Both schools and guardians of students were fully informed and voluntarily consensus on the measurement. Primary Cognitive Abilities Test(PCAT), Tony Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI-2) and The Paper Folding Test(PFT) were used for the cognitive ability tests on students. And the students’final grade of Chinese, Mathematics and English and the information of height and weight were collected. Fasting venous blood of 1231 students from 7 provinces or cities were drawn for the determination of iron nutrition indicators.Result1. The total score of PCAT was 50.38+12.45, lower than the reference of standard population (P<0.05). Except the Perception speed, the scores of mental arithmetic, spatial image, working memory and memory recall of the respondents were lower than the reference of standard population (P<0.05), respectively. Boys’ score of mental arithmetic was higher than girls, but lower in the total score of PCAT and the scores of working memory and memory recall, and there were statistical difference between boys and girls (P<0,05). The result of TONI-2 of the respondents was lower than the standard population (P<0.05). And there were no statistical difference between boys and girls on the TONI-2 result (P>0.05).2. The girls’academic performance was better than boys. The cognitive ability and academic grades were positively correlated, and the total score of PCAT and IQ of the students who passed the exams were higher than the students failed the exams.3. Family population, the parents’age, the parents’education and occupation were influence factors of students’cognitive ability and academic performance. The higher the parents’education is, the better the students’cognitive ability and grades. The students whose parents engaged in mental Labor, its cognitive and academic performance was better than that of their parents in physical labor.4. The rate of anemia of the respondents was 5.8%, iron deficiency rate was 9.9%, and the girl’s iron deficiency rate was higher than boys. In girls, Hb and the result of PCAT were positively correlated, and the correlation between sTfR and the result of PCAT had no statistical significance (P>0.05).Conclusions1. The cognitive ability of the middle school students from rural boarding school was lower than the standard reference population, especially in mental arithmetic, spatial image, working memory and memory recall, which suggested needed measures to promote the healthy growth of students. And boys were better in mental arithmetic than girls, weaker than girls in memory recall.2. Cognitive ability was an influence factor for academic performance, and the higher cognitive ability test scores was, the better academic performance were. Family facto-rs affected students’ cognitive development. The higher the parents’ educational level was, the better the children’s cognitive abilities and academic performance were. The cognitive ability and academic performance of the students whoes parents engaged in mental Labour were better than the students whoes parents engaged in manual labor.3. The anemia and iron deficiency conditions of the rural boarding school students have been improved than before. Little effect of iron deficiency on cognitive ability was found in the crowd existed a small amount of mild anemia and borderline iron deficiency. To explore the relationship between iron deficiency and cognitive ability, more rigorous research should be carried out.