Newswise — For decades, researchers have documented an achievement gap between children from higher- and lower-income families. On average, children with more resources perform better in school and on cognitive tests.

A new study looks at the cognitive and brain processes underlying the achievement gap. Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania reviewed past studies on the relationship between socioeconomic status (SES) and cognitive ability and found that children from different SES backgrounds may rely on different brain systems to solve the same problems.

In other words, it may not be as simple as children of lower SES just being of lower ability than children of higher SES—they may have qualitatively different ways of approaching the tasks.

The findings, published in Perspectives on Psychological Science, may have implications for the classroom, as well as for broader efforts to reduce socioeconomic disparities in children’s academic outcomes.

“If a teacher sees an achievement gap, one way to see it is that lower-SES children are simply less capable,” said Lingyan Hu, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania and lead author of the paper. “Our evidence offers another perspective: They may be approaching the task in a different way.”

Traditionally, researchers have viewed SES differences in cognition as quantitative, meaning all children use the same mental processes, and better performance by children of higher SES comes from those processes being stronger. Hu and her coauthor, APS Fellow and William James Award recipient Martha J. Farah, asked whether those differences might also be qualitative. In other words, what if children are not just performing better or worse, but are actually solving problems in fundamentally different ways?

To investigate, Hu and Farah reviewed 19 published studies examining how SES relates to brain activity and cognitive performance. In 15 of those studies, SES changed how brain systems were linked to behavior, a pattern known as “moderation.” In simple terms, children from different backgrounds were sometimes using different neural pathways to reach similar outcomes.

The clearest examples came from studies of math and language. In math tasks, for instance, despite performing at similar levels, children of higher SES tended to rely more on brain regions associated with language, while children of lower SES relied more on areas involved in spatial processing.

Differences also emerged in attention. In several studies, children from lower SES backgrounds showed less suppression of irrelevant information, suggesting a broader attentional style.

The researchers point to three possible explanations.

One is buffering. Children from higher SES backgrounds often grow up in more cognitively enriched environments, especially greater exposure to language. These experiences may help offset underlying differences in brain development.

“The buffering effect shows that environment really matters,” Hu said. “Even with an at-risk brain, a higher-SES child growing up in an enriched linguistic environment can do very well.”

Another explanation is verbal scaffolding. Because children of higher SES tend to have stronger language skills, they may be more likely to use language to support their thinking, even in tasks like math or reasoning. By contrast, children of lower SES may rely more on visual or spatial strategies to solve the same problems. In practical terms, one child might “talk through” a problem internally, while another visualizes it.

The third explanation is adaptation. Children develop ways of thinking that fit the environments they grow up in. In more chaotic or unpredictable settings, for example, a broader attentional focus may be helpful, even if it does not align with classroom expectations.

Though these differences appeared in math and language, other areas, such as memory, showed more consistent patterns across all children.

Nevertheless, the findings suggest that achievement gaps may reflect a mismatch between how students think and how they are taught, not simply differences in ability.

“An educational program that is successful in teaching higher-SES students may not necessarily benefit lower SES students, and vice versa,” the authors wrote. “For example, if lower-SES students tend toward more use of spatial thinking, they may not be well served by teaching methods that emphasize verbal thinking in mathematics or reasoning.”

Hu emphasizes that the analysis is not meant to provide definitive answers, but rather to demonstrate that these qualitative differences exist and deserve more attention.

“SES plays a role in shaping how children perform, not just how well they perform,” Hu said.

“The takeaway is to have a more holistic view of SES differences.”

Reference

Hu, L., & Farah, M. J. (2026). Socioeconomic status disparities in children’s cognition—Differences in degree or kind? Perspectives on Psychological Science, 21(3), 292-308.