Child poverty under the lens of Cognitive Neuroscience

Abstract

Child poverty and development are multidimensional phenomena which imply the need to analyze several biological and psychosocial components and processes within complex and changing contexts (Beddington et al., 2008; Bornstein & Lamb, 2011). Both have been studied by different scientific approaches that keep debates open on either the universality or context-dependence of biological and psychosocial underlying processes as determinants, and their implications at academic, social and policy levels. The complexity of the myriad environmental influences and their dependence on timing, suggests the need for conceptual and methodological advances in the study of child development.