Longitudinal associations among socioeconomic circumstance, brain activity, and language skill across the first six months of life.

• In Event: Relations among Socioeconomic Status, Functional Brain Activity, and Neurocognitive Outcomes: Unified Framework Approaches

Abstract

Introduction: Socioeconomic disparities in language development begin to emerge in the first few years of life (e.g., Fernald et al., 2013, Noble et al., 2015). Theory and emerging data suggest that these behavioral differences are reflected in perturbations in functional brain activity (see Figure 1 for theoretical model adapted from Brito & Noble, 2014). In particular, brain activity in the temporal region is of great interest given that language-specialized neural circuitry is found in these areas (e.g., Brito et al., 2020). While findings linking SES, brain function, and language are present in older children, few studies have examined whether these patterns exist in early infancy. The goal of the present project is to examine the relations between SES, neural activity, and language skill during the first six months of life.
Methods: Ninety-three socioeconomically diverse mother-infant dyads were recruited as part of a longitudinal study examining the emergence of socioeconomic disparities in child development. Participants completed visits prenatally and at infant ages 1 and 6 months. During their last month of pregnancy, mothers completed a questionnaire about their family socioeconomic circumstance, enabling income-to-needs ratios (ITNs) to be computed (Range: 0-43; N=69). At 1 month of age, infants completed a 5-minute resting high-density EEG collection, and resting EEG power in theta, alpha, beta, and gamma bands in frontal, central, temporal, and parietal regions were computed (N=60). Finally, at 6 months of age, infants completed the Preschool Language Scale (PLS-5; Zimmerman et al., 2011; N=71) to assess emerging language skill (data collection ongoing). Data were examined using linear regression.
Results: Consistent with theory, we first examined whether prenatal socioeconomic circumstance predicted brain activity at 1 month of age. ITN was unrelated to brain activity in all bands a one month of age (ps>.11). Next, we examined the relations between 1-month brain activity and 6-month language skill, and found that decreased relative temporal theta power (β =-.403 , t(46) = 6.147, p = .004), increased relative temporal alpha (β =.371 , t(46) = 2.707, p =.010), and, marginally, increased relative temporal beta (β = .257, t(46) = 1.802, p = .078) predicted better language skill at 6 months of age (Figure 2).
Discussion: Results suggest that socioeconomic disparities in brain activity are not yet detectable at one month of age. However, individual differences in 1-month brain activity in bilateral temporal regions did predict subsequent language skill at 6 months of age. Together, these results highlight the utility of using early brain activity as a marker for later language skill, and suggest that brain activity at 1-month of age is not yet detectibly sensitive to SES. Findings will be discussed in a larger framework detailing the chronometry of SES-related risk on neurocognitive development.

Authors

• Sonya V. Troller-Renfree, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author

• Kimberly G Noble, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Non-Presenting Author