2017 — 2021 |
Duncan, Greg John Magnuson, Katherine (co-PI) [⬀] Noble, Kimberly G |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Household Income and Child Development in the First Three Years of Life @ University of California-Irvine
PROJECT SUMMARY Recent advances in developmental neuroscience suggest that experiences early in life have profound and enduring influences on the developing brain. Family economic resources shape the nature of many of these experiences, yet the extent to which they affect children's development is unknown. Our team of neuroscientists, economists and developmental psychologists proposes to fill important gaps in scientific knowledge about the role of economic resources in early development by evaluating the first randomized controlled trial to determine whether unconditional cash payments have a causal effect on the cognitive, socio- emotional and brain development of infants and toddlers in low-income U.S. families. Specifically, 1,000 mothers of infants with incomes below the federal poverty line from four diverse U.S. communities will receive monthly cash payments by debit card for the first 40 months of the child's life. Parents in the experimental group will receive $333 per month ($4,000 per year), whereas parents in the control group will receive a nominal monthly payment of $20. In order to understand the impacts of the added income on children's cognitive and behavioral development, we will assess treatment/control group differences at age 3 (and, for a subset of measures, age 2) on measures of cognitive, language, memory, self-regulation and socio-emotional development. Brain circuitry may be sensitive to the effects of early experience even before early behavioral differences can be detected. In order to understand the impacts of added income on children's brain functioning at age 3, we will assess, during a lab visit, treatment/control group differences in measures of brain activity (electroencephalogram [EEG] and event-related potentials [ERP]). To understand how family economic behavior, parenting, and parent stress and well-being change in response to income enhancement, we will assess treatment/control differences in family expenditures, food insecurity, housing and neighborhood quality; family routines and time use; parent stress, mental health and cognition; parenting practices; and child care arrangements at child age 2 and, for a subset of these measures, child age 1. This study will thus provide the first definitive understanding of the extent to which income plays a causal role in determining early child cognitive, socio-emotional and brain development among low-income families.
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0.954 |
2018 — 2021 |
Noble, Kimberly G |
R01Activity Code Description: To support a discrete, specified, circumscribed project to be performed by the named investigator(s) in an area representing his or her specific interest and competencies. |
Socioeconomic Disparities in Cognitive and Neural Development in the First 3 Years @ Columbia University Teachers College
Socioeconomic disadvantage in childhood is associated with deleterious effects on cognitive development and academic achievement, which in turn have long-lasting ramifications for numerous physical and mental health outcomes across the lifespan. Yet, our understanding of the experiential, physiological, epigenetic and neural pathways through which socioeconomic disparities shape developmental processes is just beginning to emerge. The core contribution of the proposed research would be to further this understanding, by marrying state-of-the-art measurement of brain function, physiology and epigenetics with a sophisticated conceptual and empirical understanding of socioeconomic inequality and experience. In this project, we will investigate how distal factors like SES operate through more proximate factors such as the home language environment and perceived and physiologic stress, and how these proximate factors shape the development of distinct neural and cognitive systems. Two pathways are hypothesized. First, we predict that socioeconomic disparities in the quality and quantity of linguistic stimulation in the home lead to differences in the function of language-specific brain processes, which in turn lead to differences in child language development. Secondly, we predict that SES disparities in perceived stress as well as physiologic stress (cortisol, epigenetics) lead to differences in the function of memory-specific brain processes, which in turn lead to differences in child memory development. To test these hypotheses, a longitudinal study is proposed in which a socioeconomically diverse cohort of 200 children and their families will be followed from birth through age 3. The development of early language and memory skills will be tracked, along with family SES, the home language environment, perceived stress, stress physiology, epigenetics, and brain function. The following specific aims are proposed: (1) Examine longitudinally from birth to 3 the relations among SES, language, memory and brain development. (2) Examine whether socioeconomic disparities in cognitive and brain development are mediated by (a) the home language environment and (b) perceived and physiologic stress. This innovative research will elucidate the pathways linking socioeconomic disparities to specific cognitive and neural outcomes. This is aligned with NICHD?s mission to assist children to ?achieve their full potential for healthy and productive lives.?
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