Environmental Influences on the Learning Brain: Recontextualizing Students' Neurocognitive Variability 6 views

Educational disparities linked to socioeconomic status (SES) are well-documented, yet the specific neurocognitive and environmental mechanisms through which SES shapes children's learning remain poorly understood. This dissertation examines how home context and SES relate to neurocognitive processing across three learning domains. It argues that children's experiential contexts shape the neural pathways they recruit, variability that is often invisible behaviorally but meaningful for learning. Paper 1 investigates individual differences in neurocognitive approaches to grammar processing in 115 children (M = 7.6 years) using fMRI. Findings reveal distinct but cooperative roles for declarative (DM) and procedural memory (PM) systems in grammatical error detection, with substantial individual variability among same-aged children adding to evidence that shared developmental stage does not necessarily imply uniform neurocognitive processing. Paper 2 examines associations between specific home context factors, brain structure, and cognitive outcomes in a large sample (n = 8,764; M = 12.54 years) from the ABCD Study. Theory-driven models focused on the intraparietal sulcus, with machine learning used to test results’ generalizability to other brain regions. Proximal home environment characteristics predicted neural structure and cognitive outcomes above and beyond SES, highlighting specific, modifiable environmental factors as potential intervention targets. Paper 3 tests whether DM and PM engagement during arithmetic mediates associations between SES, home environment, and math performance in 39 nine-year-olds. Home disorder was associated with greater PM and reduced DM engagement during addition, though neural differences did not mediate performance. Together, these studies demonstrate how children's experiential contexts can systematically shape their neurocognitive processing profiles across learning domains, motivating individually responsive instructional approaches that leverage students' neurocognitive strengths as one component of broader efforts toward more equitable educational outcomes.

PHD (Doctor of Philosophy)

brain and learning; socioeconomic status; home environment

English

2026-04-20