Low-Socioeconomic Status and poverty can have profound effects on the brain and body, and thus influence both mental and physical health.
Sebastián J. Lipina and Michael I. Posner argue that a child ’s reaction to stress is an important factor in success in school and our understanding of the stress reaction may also guide us in analyzing other brain systems more directly involved in schooling.
Brain connectivity of systems devoted to regulate thoughts and feelings develop over the early life of infants and young children, and lead to the ability to regulate other brain networks.
Training studies designed to improve decoding and phonological competences, have shown that children living in poverty with low reading skill can improve. In the same sense, training in numerical quantity before the start of school could reduce arithmetic difficulties through manual and computerized exercises.
Biological determinants associated with childhood poverty are also related with inequalities in cognitive and emotional development that poses a threat to educational attainment.