SMU researchers who did research on the demographic data and intellectual assessments of more than 18,000 kindergartners and first graders in the US found that children with lower socioeconomic status scored lower on cognitive tests. However, they also found that within this group, kids whose families spoke a second language at home scored better than monolinguals. According to research lead Andree Hartanto, a doctoral candidate in Psychology at SMU School of Social Sciences, he sought out a data set of thousands of children who were demographically representative of the US population. It is the largest study to date on the bilingual advantage and captured more socioeconomic diversity than most other studies. However, Hartanto also agreed that more work needs to be done to further explore the complexities of the issue.