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3-169 - Socioeconomic Status, Brain, and Cognitive Development: Environmental Mechanisms and Individual Differences

Sat, March 23, 2:30 to 4:00pm, Baltimore Convention Center, Floor: Level 3, Room 321

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Growing evidence suggests childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with differences in neural and cognitive development. Critically, the exact mechanisms behind these associations remain poorly understood. In this symposium, researchers at the intersection of psychology, neuroscience, and education will present work investigating specific mediators and moderators of the relation between SES, cognition, and the brain. The first speaker will show that SES moderates the association between fluid reasoning and rostrolateral prefrontal cortex structure such that thicker cortex was associated with better reasoning ability in both preschoolers and adolescents from low-, but not high-, SES backgrounds. The second speaker extends this work to early development, showing that SES and cognitive stimulation, but not parental nurturance, are associated with brain structure (cortical, white matter, frontal, and temporal volume), beginning in infancy. The third speaker further highlights the importance of cognitive stimulation in a home visit study of 5-6 year olds, showing that it mediates the association between SES and executive function, while other aspects of the early environment do not. The final speaker will further break down experiences associated with SES and show in a sample of 4-7 year olds that deprivation, but not threat, is associated with reduced cognitive control while threat, but not deprivation, was associated with blunted reactivity in a fear-conditioning task. Together, these multidisciplinary presentations will highlight underlying mechanisms driving SES-related differences in cognitive and neural development to better inform interventions designed to close the income-achievement and related to prevention and treatment of psychopathology.

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