Interestingly, she found that high LFPN-DMN connectivity was linked to worse mental health for children in poverty—and that it even predicted worse mental health one year later. It suggests maybe the same pattern of brain activity that helps these kids succeed also puts them at risk.

Selina found that 9-10 year-old kids in poverty who had high grades also had better mental health concurrently, but grades were not predictive of future mental health issues.

Worryingly, this pattern of high LFPN-DMN coupling—seemingly adaptive for kids in poverty—has also previously been associated with mental health issues. So Selina wondered: is this also true for kids in poverty? Is something different going on, or is this still a risk factor?

We’ve previously found that kids in poverty who are high-performers on these tests and in school are more likely to show higher neural coupling between the LFPN (goal-directed processing) and the DMN (thoughts outside of the here-and-now). This was surprising—it’s the opposite of high-income kids.

Kids in poverty are often talked about as if they are a monolithic group, but of course we know that’s not true. Even when looking at their test scores on standardized cognitive measures alone (an arguably biased metric), there’s huge variation in how they do.

Over the moon to share that I will be starting my own lab as an Assistant Professor at Stanford GSE this fall, building out the Stanford Center on Early Childhood.

Excited does no justice to what I feel—this is a dream job in the place where most of my community is, and that feels most like home.

In popular narratives, parents in poverty are blamed for the perpetuation of poverty — overlooking the societal structures that made them poor in the first place. Respecting poor parents and their decisions points us toward the role society has in eliminating poverty. Read here: tinyurl.com/mrkp7yu6

We delve into issues like authoritarian parenting, preparation for literacy, language use, and decisions about when to conceive. These can look different for different families, and we explore how the literature sometimes mischaracterizes the choices of low-income families as maladaptive.

In our essay with @greyes.bsky.social, Meriah DeJoseph, and Willem Frankenhuis, we argue that forms of parenting more common in poverty, many of which are highly racialized and stigmatized, are often adaptive, carefully thought-out responses to raising a child under intense constraints.

Finally read this paper and already know I will be back again and again.

So many insights about language and testing and education (in the 60s and now) and also rabbits? And wow what a delight