Natalie Brito

Family income, parental education and brain structure in children and adolescents

Socioeconomic disparities are associated with differences in cognitive development. The extent to which this translates to disparities in brain structure is unclear. We investigated relationships between socioeconomic factors and brain morphometry, independently of genetic ancestry, among a cohort of 1,099 typically developing individuals between 3 and 20 years of age. Income was logarithmically associated with brain surface area. Among children from lower income families, small differences in income were associated with relatively large differences in surface area, whereas, among children from higher income families, similar income increments were associated with smaller differences in surface area. These relationships were most prominent in regions supporting language, reading, executive functions and spatial skills; surface area mediated socioeconomic differences in certain neurocognitive abilities. These data imply that income relates most strongly to brain structure among the most disadvantaged children.

Socioeconomic status and structural brain development

Recent advances in neuroimaging methods have made accessible new ways of disentangling the complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors that influence structural brain development. In recent years, research investigating associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and brain development have found significant links between SES and changes in brain structure, especially in areas related to memory, executive control, and emotion. This review focuses on studies examining links between structural brain development and SES disparities of the magnitude typically found in developing countries. We highlight how highly correlated measures of SES are differentially related to structural changes within the brain.

Influence of bilingualism on memory generalization during infancy

Very few studies have examined the cognitive advantages of bilingualism during the first two years of development, and a majority of the studies examining bilingualism throughout the lifespan have focused on the relationship between multiple languages and cognitive control. Early experience with multiple language systems may influence domain-general processes, such as memory, that may increase a bilingual childs capacity for learning. In the current study, we found that bilingual, but not monolingual, infants were able to generalize across cues at 18 months. This is the first study to show a clear bilingual advantage in memory generalization, with more equal or balanced exposure to each language significantly predicting ability to generalize.

Socioeconomic Disparities in Neurocognitive Development in the First Two Years of Life

Socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly associated with cognition and achievement. Socioeconomic disparities in language and memory skills have been reported from elementary school through adolescence. Less is known about the extent to which such disparities emerge in infancy. Here, 179 infants from socioeconomically diverse families were recruited. Using a cohort-sequential design, 90 infants were followed at 9 and 15 months, and 89 were followed at 15 and 21 months. SES disparities in developmental trajectories of language and memory were present such that, at 21 months of age, children of highly educated parents scored approximately .8 standard deviations higher in both language and memory than children of less educated parents. The home language and literacy environment and parental warmth partially accounted for disparities in language, but not memory development.

Flexible memory retrieval in bilingual 6‐month‐old infants

Memory flexibility is a hallmark of the human memory system. As indexed by generalization between perceptually dissimilar objects, memory flexibility develops gradually during infancy. A recent study has found a bilingual advantage in memory generalization at 18 months of age [Brito and Barr [2012] Developmental Science, 15, 812-816], and the present study examines when this advantage may first emerge. In the current study, bilingual 6-month-olds were more likely than monolinguals to generalize to a puppet that differed in two features (shape and color) than monolingual 6-month-olds. When challenged with a less complex change, two puppets that differed only in one feature--color, monolingual 6-month-olds were also able to generalize. These findings demonstrate early emerging differences in memory generalization in bilingual infants, and have important implications for our understanding of how early environmental variations shape the trajectory of memory development.

Associations among family socioeconomic status, EEG power at birth, and cognitive skills during infancy

Past research has demonstrated links between cortical activity, measured via EEG power, and cognitive processes during infancy. In a separate line of research, family socioeconomic status (SES) has been strongly associated with children’s early cognitive development, with socioeconomic disparities emerging during the second year of life for both language and declarative memory skills. The present study examined associations among resting EEG power at birth, SES, and language and memory skills at 15-months in a sample of full-term infants. Results indicate no associations between SES and EEG power at birth. However, EEG power at birth was related to both language and memory outcomes at 15-months. Specifically, frontal power (24–48 Hz) was positively correlated with later Visual Paired Comparison (VPC) memory scores. Power (24–35 Hz) in the parietal region was positively correlated with later PLS-Auditory Comprehension language scores. These findings suggest that SES disparities in brain activity may not be apparent at birth, but measures of resting neonatal EEG power are correlated with later memory and language skills independently of SES.

Associations between cortical thickness and neurocognitive skills during childhood vary by family socioeconomic factors

&NA; Studies have reported associations between cortical thickness (CT) and socioeconomic status (SES), as well as between CT and cognitive outcomes. However, findings have been mixed as to whether CT explains links between SES and cognitive performance. In the current study, we hypothesized that this inconsistency may have arisen from the fact that socioeconomic factors (family income and parental education) may moderate the relation between CT and neurocognitive skills. Results indicated that associations between CT and cognitive performance did vary by SES for both language and executive function (EF) abilities. Across all ages, there was a negative correlation between CT and cognitive skills, with thinner cortices associated with higher language and EF scores. Similarly, across all cognitive skills, children from higher‐SES homes outperformed their age‐matched peers from lower‐SES homes. Moderation analyses indicated that the impact of SES was not constant across CT, with SES more strongly predictive of EF skills among children with thicker cortices and more strongly predictive of language skills among children with thinner cortices. This suggests that socioeconomic advantage may in some cases buffer against a neurobiological risk factor for poor performance. These findings suggest that links between brain structure and cognitive processes vary by family socioeconomic circumstance. HighlightsLinks between brain structure and cognitive skills vary by SES.Income strongly predictive of EF skills among children with thicker cortices.Income and ED predictive of language skills among children with thinner cortices.

Specificity of the bilingual advantage for memory: Examining cued recall, generalization, and working memory in monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual toddlers

The specificity of the bilingual advantage in memory was examined by testing groups of monolingual, bilingual, and trilingual 24-month-olds on tasks tapping cued recall, memory generalization and working memory. For the cued recall and memory generalization conditions, there was a 24-h delay between time of encoding and time of retrieval. In addition to the memory tasks, parent-toddler dyads completed a picture-book reading task, in order to observe emotional responsiveness, and a parental report of productive vocabulary. Results indicated no difference between language groups on cued recall, working memory, emotional responsiveness, or productive vocabulary, but a significant difference was found in the memory generalization condition with only the bilingual group outperforming the baseline control group. These results replicate and extend results from past studies (Brito and Barr, 2012, 2014; Brito et al., 2014) and suggest a bilingual advantage specific to memory generalization.

Differences in Language Exposure and its Effects on Memory Flexibility in Monolingual, Bilingual, and Trilingual Infants *

Bilingual advantages in memory flexibility, indexed using a memory generalization task, have been reported (Brito & Barr, 2012; 2014), and the present study examines what factors may influence memory performance. The first experiment examines the role of language similarity; bilingual 18-month-old infants exposed to two similar languages (Spanish–Catalan) or two more different (English–Spanish) languages were tested on a memory generalization task and compared to monolingual 18-month-olds. The second experiment compares performance by trilingual 18-month-olds to monolingual and bilingual infants’ performance from the first experiment. The bilingual advantage in memory flexibility was robust; both bilingual groups outperformed the monolingual groups, with no significant differences between bilingual groups. Interestingly, an advantage was not found for infants exposed to three languages. These findings demonstrate early emerging differences in memory flexibility, and have important implications for our understanding of how early environmental variations shape the trajectory of memory development.

Delivering Services to Incarcerated Teen Fathers: A Pilot Intervention to Increase the Quality of Father-Infant Interactions During Visitation

The absence of a father figure has been linked to very poor developmental outcomes for the child. During incarceration, there are limited opportunities for visitation between fathers and their children. The Baby Elmo Program provides incarcerated teen fathers with parenting training and visitation with their children with the stated goal of enhancing father-child interactional quality. Forty-one incarcerated teen fathers and their infants ranging from 1 to 15 months of age participated in the present study. During individual sessions, a trained facilitator prepared fathers for visits with their children by introducing key concepts such as following the childs lead, using developmentally appropriate media to illustrate those concepts. After each training session, the incarcerated teen father interacted with his infant and the visit was video recorded. Analysis of the visit sessions focused on fathers time use on different activities, the quality of father-infant interactions, and fathers integration of target skills introduced in the intervention. The time-use analysis revealed that time use changed as a function of infant age. Growth linear modeling indicated that there were significant positive increases in the amount of parent support and infant engagement as a function of the number of sessions. Follow-up analyses indicated that changes between specific sessions mapped onto the target skills discussed during specific training sessions. This studys preliminary findings suggest that an intervention integrating visitation and appropriate media may be effective for incarcerated teen fathers. Due to the lack of a randomized control group, the present findings are exploratory and are discussed with a focus on further program development.