Psychological Development and Education ›› 2022, Vol. 38 ›› Issue (1): 134-143.doi: 10.16187/j.cnki.issn1001-4918.2022.01.16

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The Mechanisms of Poverty Impedes Children's Executive Function

REN Yi, HUANG Silin   

  1. Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875
  • Published:2022-02-17

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Abstract: Children from low socioeconomic status backgrounds generally show poorer executive function performances, which may far reach into their adulthood as compared to their peers from more affluent families. In response to reveal the underlying mechanism between poverty and children's executive function, significant research efforts have been made from a range of levels, such as behavior, physiological and brain level. In this review, the relationship between poverty and children executive function was studied comprehensively by systematical reviewing of recent research literatures on cumulative risk, adaptive load and prefrontal structure and function. It is important to note that several aspects such as the positive effect of poverty on certain components of children's executive function, the mechanism of deprivation risk, adaptive load and the neural mechanism of related brain areas are necessary for future study. Additionally, an integrated framework of behavior-physiology-brain underlying the poverty is introduced for expanding future research fields.

Key words: poor children, executive function, cumulative risk, allostatic load, frontal regions

CLC Number: 

  • B844
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