Examines racial and ethnic disparities in school readiness from the perspective of the neurocognitive systems that are essential for school success – cognitive control, learning and memory, and reading. Studies demonstrates a correlation between socioeconomic status and chronic stress, on the one hand, and cognitive control and learning and memory, on the other. Recent research, however, also indicates the potential promise of targeted educational interventions. In particular, findings suggest that: (1) the brain regions involved in reading in typically developing readers may prove to be quite malleable in response to therapeutic interventions and can respond dramatically to relatively short-lived interventions; (2) researchers can predict a child’s reading achievement levels better by using a combination of information about the brain and about social background than by using either type of information alone; and (3) differences in brain development, rather than in behavioral performance, may ultimately predict an individual child’s response to intervention. Effective educational measures may soon begin to close racial and socioeconomic gaps in both school readiness and academic achievement.
