Differences in the neural mechanisms of selective attention in children from different socioeconomic backgrounds: an event‐related brain potential study

Abstract

Previous research indicates that children from lower socioeconomic backgrounds show deficits in aspects of attention, including a reduced ability to filter irrelevant information and to suppress prepotent responses. However, less is known about the neural mechanisms of group differences in attention, which could reveal the stages of processing at which attention deficits arise. The present study examined this question using an event-related brain potential (ERP) measure of selective auditory attention. Thirty-two children aged 3-to 8-years participated in the study. Children were cued to attend selectively to one of two simultaneously presented narrative stories. The stories differed in location (left/right speaker), narration voice (male/female), and content. ERPs were recorded to linguistic and non-linguistic probe stimuli embedded in the attended and unattended stories. Children whose mothers had lower levels of educational attainment (no college experience) showed reduced effects of selective attention on neural processing relative to children whose mothers had higher levels of educational attainment (at least some college). These differences occurred by 100 msec after probe onset. Furthermore, the differences were related specifically to a reduced ability to filter irrelevant information (i.e., to suppress the response to sounds in the unattended channel) among children whose mothers had lower levels of education. These data provide direct evidence for differences in the earliest stages of processing within neural systems mediating selective attention in children from different socioeconomic backgrounds. Results are discussed in the context of intervention programs aimed at improving attention and self-regulation abilities in children at-risk for school failure.

Children’s Cognitive Development in Social Vulnerability: An Interventional Experience

“…Taken together, these results are consistent with previous studies that have demonstrated that Low-SES children have lower performance when it comes to: (1) intellectual abilities (Ramey & Campbell, 1991;Smith, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1997); (2) the level of vocabulary achieved (Hart & Risley, 1995;Hoff, 2003;Pan, Rowe, Singer, & Snow, 2005) and language comprehension (Noble, Norman, & Farah, 2005;Noble, McCandliss & Farah, 2007); (3) attentional processes (Mezzacappa, 2004;Stevens, Lauinger, & Neville, 2009);and in (4) diverse tasks that values executive functioning (Farah et al, 2006;Noble et al, 2005;Noble et al, 2007).…”

Implications of Socioeconomic Status on Academic Competence: A Perspective for Teachers

“…Emerging evidence suggests that SES is a predictor of academic achievement. In fact, a body of research supports the notion that problematic attention is the hallmark of lower-income students and that this deficit is strongly associated to academic achievement (Caspi, Wright, Moffit, & Silva, 1998;Farah & Hackman, 2012;Neville et al, 2013;Sampson, Sharkey, & Raudenbush, 2007;Stevens, Lauinger, & Neville, 2009). Poor or lower-SES environments seem to generate significant stress on individuals compromising selective attention with implications for academic achievement.…”

“…The cognitive process of obtaining corrective information, new input, feedback, establishing associations and reorganizing present and prior knowledge is possible due to the brain malleability that lasts throughout the lifespan (Stevens et al, 2009). Studies with rodents showed that after exposure to enriching environments, neuroanatomical changes in the form of increased brain size, brain weight and dendritic branching were reported (Bryck & Fisher, 2012).…”

Latino Immigrant Students in Spain: Potential Poly-Victims and School Underachievers

“…Some authors contend that a better understanding of the complexity of the neural mechanism of attention would facilitate prompt interventions and the development of appropriate strategies to tackle children's attention deficits (Stevens et al, 2009). In that sense, developmental neuroscientists performed studies with children from different SES backgrounds using a non-invasive technique called event-related-potentials (ERPs) and some also included salivary cortisol tests to understand the mechanism of attention.…”