Socioeconomic Status and the Developing Brain

Overview

Journal Trends Cogn Sci

Date 2009 Jan 13

PMID 19135405

Citations 439

Authors

Daniel A Hackman

Martha J Farah

Affiliations

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Abstract

Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with cognitive achievement throughout life. How does SES relate to brain development, and what are the mechanisms by which SES might exert its influence? We review studies in which behavioral, electrophysiological and neuroimaging methods have been used to characterize SES disparities in neurocognitive function. These studies indicate that SES is an important predictor of neurocognitive performance, particularly of language and executive function, and that SES differences are found in neural processing even when performance levels are equal. Implications for basic cognitive neuroscience and for understanding and ameliorating the problems related to childhood poverty are discussed.

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