Self-regulation in at-risk children: Exploring factors that affect cognitive functions in refugee children

The number of refugee children is increasing every year all around the globe, along with their suffering from psychological and cognitive problems. Refugee experience may be characterized with chaos which includes multiple extreme traumatic life events. In the present study, the primary aim was to operationally define the traumatic and chaotic components of the refugee experience and to explore their effects on children's cognitive functioning; visual working memory, inhibition, and shifting, in the sample of Syrian refugee children relocated in Turkey. 34 Syrian children (7- to 13-year-old) and 40 age-matched locals participated in the study with their parents. TIFALDI Receptive Vocabulary Subscale, Color Trials Test 1-2, Heart and Flowers Task and the computerized Corsi Block Tapping Task were administered to participant children. Turkish receptive vocabulary was the strongest predictor of executive functioning. Trauma and household chaos, in addition to maternal depression and perceived social support, were significantly related to children's executive functioning. Academic and clinical implications of the study were discussed.