Distinctive Mechanisms of Adversity and Socioeconomic Inequality in Child Development: A Review and Recommendations for Evidence-Based Policy

Dima Amso, Andrew Lynn, Dima Amso, Andrew Lynn

Abstract

This review proposes separate and distinct biological mechanisms for the effects of adversity, more commonly experienced in poverty, and socioeconomic status (SES) on child development. Adversity affects brain and cognitive development through the biological stress response, which confers risk for pathology. Critically, we argue that a different mechanism, enrichment, shapes differences in brain and cognitive development across the SES spectrum. Distinguishing between adversity and SES allows for precise, evidence-based policy recommendations. We offer recommendations designed to ensure equity in children's experiences to help narrow the achievement gap and promote intergenerational mobility.

Keywords: SES; achievement gap; development; executive functions; intergenerational mobility; policy; poverty.

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

    1. Aizer A. Rising inequality and intergenerational mobility: The role of public investments in human capital. Cesifo Economic Studies. 2014;60:280–311. doi: 10.1093/cesifo/ifu010.
    1. Amso D, Haas S, Markant J. An eye tracking investigation of developmental change in bottom-up attention orienting to faces in cluttered natural scenes. PLoS ONE. 2014;9:1–7. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0085701.
    1. Amso D, Haas S, McShane L, Badre D. Working memory updating and the development of rule-guided behavior. Cognition. 2014;133:201–210. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2014.06.012.
    1. Ansari A, Winsler A. Kindergarten readiness for low-incomeandethnicallydiversechildrenattendingpubliclyfunded preschool programs in Miami. Early Childhood Research Quarterly. 2016;37:69–80. doi: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2016.06.002.
    1. Bick J, Zhu T, Stamoulis C, Fox NA, Zeanah C, Nelson CA. Effect of early institutionalization and foster care on long-term white matter development. JAMA Pediatrics. 2015;169:211–219. doi: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2014.3212.
    1. Blair C. School readiness: Integrating cognition and emotion in a neurobiological conceptualization of children’s functioning at school entry. American Psychologist. 2002;57:111–127. doi: 10.1037//0003-066X.57.2.111.
    1. Blair C, Granger DA, Willoughby M, Mills-Koonce R, Cox M, Greenberg MT, … Fortunato CK. Salivary cortisol mediates effects of poverty and parenting on executive functions in early childhood. Child Development. 2011;82:1970–1984. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01643.x.
    1. Blair C, Raver CC, Granger D, Mills-Koonce R, Hibel L. Allostasis and allostatic load in the context of poverty in early childhood. Development and Psychopathology. 2011;23:845–857. doi: 10.1017/S0954579411000344.
    1. Carrión VG, Haas BW, Garrett A, Song S, Reiss AL. Reduced hippocampal activity in youth with posttraumatic stress symptoms: An fMRI study. Journal of Pediatric Psychology. 2010;35:559–569. doi: 10.1093/jpepsy/jsp112.
    1. Carrion VG, Wong SS. Can traumatic stress alter the brain? Understanding the implications of early trauma on brain development and learning. Journal of Adolescent Health. 2012;51:S23–S28. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2012.04.010.
    1. Chetty R, Hendren N. The impacts of neighborhoods on intergenerational mobility I: Childhood exposure effects. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research; 2017. (No. 23001)
    1. Chetty R, Hendren N, Kline P, Saez E. Where is the land of opportunity? The geography of intergenerational mobility in the United States. Quarterly Journal of Economics. 2014;129:1553–1623. doi: 10.1093/qje/qju022.
    1. Conger RD, Donnellan MB. An interactionist perspective on the socioeconomic context of human development. Annual Review of Psychology. 2007;58:175–199. doi: 10.1146/annurev.psych.58.110405.085551.
    1. Cutuli JJ, Wiik KL, Herbers JE, Gunnar MR, Masten AS. Cortisol function among early school-aged homeless children. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2010;35:833–845. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2009.11.008.
    1. Davidson MC, Amso D, Anderson LC, Diamond A. Development of cognitive control and executive functions from 4 to 13 years: Evidence from manipulations of memory, inhibition, and task switching. Neuropsychologia. 2006;44:2037–2078.
    1. Diamond A, Lee K. Interventions shown to aid executive function development in children. Science. 2011;333:959–964. doi: 10.1126/science.1204529.
    1. Dowd JB, Simanek AM, Aiello AE. Socioeconomic status, cortisol and allostatic load: A review of the literature. International Journal of Epidemiology. 2009;38:1297–1309. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyp277.
    1. Dvir Y, Ford JD, Hill M, Frazier JA. Childhood maltreatment, emotional dysregulation, and psychiatric comorbidities. Harvard Review of Psychiatry. 2014;22:149–161. doi: 10.1097/HRP.0000000000000014.Childhood.
    1. Evans GW, Kim P. Cumulative risk exposure and stress dysregulation. Psychological Science. 2007;18:953–958. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.02008.x.
    1. Evans GW, Schamberg MA. Childhood poverty, chronic stress, and adult working memory. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 2009;106:6545–6549. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0811910106.
    1. Green JG, McLaughlin KA, Berglund PA, Gruber MJ, Sampson NA, Zaslavsky AM, … Kessler RC. Childhood adversities and adult psychiatric disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication I. Archives of General Psychiatry. 2010;67:113–123. doi: 10.1001/archgenpsychiatry.2009.186.
    1. Güler OE, Hostinar CE, Frenn KA, Nelson CA, Gunnar MR, Thomas KM. Electrophysiological evidence of altered memory processing in children experiencing early deprivation. Developmental Science. 2012;15:345–358. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2011.01131.x.
    1. Hackman DA, Betancourt LM, Gallop R, Romer D, Brodsky NL, Hurt H, … Farah MJ. Mapping the trajectory of socioeconomic disparity in working memory: Parental and neighborhood factors. Child Development. 2014;85:1433–1445. doi: 10.1111/cdev.12242.
    1. Hackman DA, Farah MJ. Socioeconomic status and the developing brain. Trends in Cognitive Sciences. 2009;13:65–73. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2008.11.003.
    1. Hackman DA, Gallop R, Evans GW, Farah MJ. Socioeconomic status and executive function: Developmental trajectories and mediation. Developmental Science. 2015;18:686–702. doi: 10.1111/desc.12246.
    1. Hanson JL, Hair N, Shen DG, Shi F, Gilmore JH, Wolfe BL, … Pollak SD. Family poverty affects the rate of human infant brain growth. PLoS ONE. 2013;8:e80954. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0080954.
    1. Hare BD, Beierle JA, Toufexis DJ, Hammack SE, Falls WA. Exercise-associated changes in the corticosterone response to acute restraint stress: Evidence for increased adrenal sensitivity and reduced corticosterone response duration. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2014;39:1262–1269. doi: 10.1038/npp.2013.329.
    1. Hart B, Risley TR. Meaningful differences in the everyday experience of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes; 1995.
    1. Hostinar CE, Gunnar MR. Future directions in the study of social relationships as regulators of the HPA axis across development. Journal of Clinical Child & Adolescent Psychology. 2013;42:564–575. doi: 10.1080/15374416.2013.804387.
    1. Hostinar CE, Johnson AE, Gunnar MR. Parent support is less effective in buffering cortisol stress reactivity for adolescents compared to children. Developmental Science. 2015;18:281–297. doi: 10.1111/desc.12195.
    1. Kraft AJ, Luecken LJ. Childhood parental divorce and cortisol in young adulthood: Evidence for mediation by family income. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2009;34:1363–1369. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2009.04.008.
    1. Lawson GM, Camins JS, Wisse L, Wu J, Duda JT, Cook PA, … Farah MJ. Childhood socioeconomic status and childhood maltreatment: Distinct associations with brain structure. PLoS ONE. 2017;12:1–16. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0175690.
    1. Lawson GM, Farah MJ. Executive function as a mediator between SES and academic achievement throughout childhood. International Journal of Behavioral Development. 2017;41:94–104. doi: 10.1177/0165025415603489.
    1. Lees C, Hopkins J. Effect of aerobic exercise on cognition, academic achievement, and psychosocial function in children: A systematic review of randomized control trials. Preventing Chronic Disease. 2013;10:E174. doi: 10.5888/pcd10.130010.
    1. Lester BM, Lagasse LL, Shankaran S, Bada HS, Bauer CR, Lin R, … Higgins R. Prenatal cocaine exposure related to cortisol stress reactivity in 11-year-old children. Journal of Pediatrics. 2010;157:288–295. doi: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2010.02.039.
    1. Lind T, Lee Raby K, Caron EB, Roben CKP, Dozier M. Enhancing executive functioning among toddlers in foster care with an attachment-based intervention. Development and Psychopathology. 2017;29:575–586. doi: 10.1017/S0954579417000190.
    1. Mackey AP, Finn AS, Leonard JA, Jacoby-Senghor DS, West MR, Gabrieli CFO, … Gabrieli JDE. Neuroanatomical correlates of the income-achievement gap. Psychological Science. 2015;26:925–933. doi: 10.1177/0956797615572233.
    1. Markant J, Ackerman LK, Nussenbaum K, Amso D. Selective attention neutralizes the adverse effects of low socioeconomic status on memory in 9-month-old infants. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. 2016;18:26–33. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2015.10.009.
    1. McEwen BS. Stress, adaptation, and disease: Allostatis and allostatic load. Annals New York Academy of Sciences. 1998;840:33–44.
    1. McEwen BS. Sex, stress and the hippocampus: Allostasis, allostatic load and the aging process. Neurobiology of Aging. 2002;23:921–939. doi: 10.1016/S0197-4580(02)00027-1.
    1. McEwen BS. Understanding the potency of stressful early life experiences on brain and body function. Metabolism: Clinical and Experimental. 2008;57(Suppl 2):S11–S15. doi: 10.1016/j.metabol.2008.07.006.
    1. McEwen BS, Nasca C, Gray JD. Stress effects on neuronal structure: Hippocampus, amygdala, and prefrontal cortex. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2016;41:3–23. doi: 10.1038/npp.2015.171.
    1. Mclaughlin KA, Sheridan MA, Nelson CA. Neglect as a violation of species-expectant experience: Neurodevelopmental consequences. Biological Psychiatry. 2017 doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2017.02.1096. Advanced online publication.
    1. Mclaughlin KA, Sheridan MA, Winter W, Fox NA, Zeanah CH, Nelson CA. Widespread reductions in cortical thickness following severe early-life deprivation: A neurodevelopmental pathway to ADH. Biological Psychiatry. 2014;76:629–638. doi: 10.1016/j.biopsych.2013.08.016.
    1. McLoyd VC. Socioeconomic disadvantage and child development. American Psychologist. 1998;53:185–204. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.53.2.185.
    1. Mills-Koonce WR, Towe-Goodman N. Poverty and HPA functioning in young children. In: King R, Maholmes V, editors. The Oxford handbook of poverty and child development. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press; 2012.
    1. Nachmias M, Gunnar M, Mangelsdorf S, Parritz RH, Buss K. Behavioral inhibition and stress reactivity: The moderating role of attachment security. Child Development. 1996;67:508–522. doi: 10.2307/1131829.
    1. Noble KG, Engelhardt LE, Brito NH, Mack LJ, Nail EJ, Angal J, … Elliott AJ. Socioeconomic disparities in neurocognitive development in the first two years of life. Developmental Psychobiology. 2015;57:535–551. doi: 10.1002/dev.21303.
    1. Noble KG, McCandliss BD, Farah MJ. Socioeconomic gradients predict individual differences in neurocognitive abilities. Developmental Science. 2007;10:464–480. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2007.00600.x.
    1. Noble KG, Norman MF, Farah MJ. Neurocognitive correlates of socioeconomic status in kindergarten children. Developmental Science. 2005;8:74–87. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-7687.2005.00394.x.
    1. Olds DL. The nurse-family partnership: An evidence-based perventive intervention. Infant Mental Health Journal. 2006;27:5–25. doi: 10.1002/imhj.20077.
    1. Piccolo LR, Merz EC, He X, Sowell ER, Noble KG. Age-related differences in cortical thickness vary by socioeconomic status. PLoS ONE. 2016;11:1–18. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0162511.
    1. Raver CC, Jones SM, Li-Grining C, Zhai F, Bub K, Pressler E. CSRP’s impact on low income pre-schoolers’ preacademic skills: Self regulation as a mediating mechanism. Child Development. 2011;82:362–378. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2010.01561.x.CSRP.
    1. Sarsour K, Sheridan M, Jutte D, Nuru-Jeter A, Hinshaw S, Boyce WT. Family socioeconomic status and child executive functions: The roles of language, home environment, and single parenthood. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society. 2011;17:120–132. doi: 10.1017/S1355617710001335.
    1. Tarullo AR, Gunnar MR. Child maltreatment and the developing HPA axis. Hormones and Behavior. 2006;50:632–639. doi: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2006.06.010.
    1. Tottenham N, Sheridan MA. A review of adversity, the amygdala and the hippocampus: A consideration of developmental timing. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience. 2009;3:1–18. doi: 10.3389/neuro.09.068.2009.
    1. Ursache A, Merz EC, Melvin S, Meyer J, Noble KG. Socioeconomic status, hair cortisol and internalizing symptoms in parents and children. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2017;78:142–150. doi: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2017.01.020.
    1. Ursache A, Noble KG. Socioeconomic status, white matter, and executive function in children. Brain and Behavior. 2016;6:1–13. doi: 10.1002/brb3.531.
    1. Werchan DM, Ackerman LK, Parade SH, Tyrka AR, Seifer R, Philip NS, Amso D. Cognitive and affective function at school onset in children experiencing trauma and adversity. 2017 Manuscript submitted for publication.
    1. West P, Sweeting H, Young R, Kelly S. The relative importance of family socioeconomic status and school-based peer hierarchies for morning cortisol in youth: An exploratory study. Social Science & Medicine. 2010;70:1246–1253. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2009.12.006.

Source: PubMed

Sponsorit ja yhteistyökumppanit

Sairaudet

Huumeiden interventiot

3
Tilaa