7 - Pre- and Postnatal Environmental Effects on Learning to Read and Mathematical Learning

Summary

The foundations of academic abilities in reading and mathematics are established early in life, long before formal schooling begins. One major source that impacts the outcome of academic abilities is the prenatal (or antenatal) and postnatal environment. Exposures during prenatal or postnatal development that cause permanent changes to the biology and outcome of an individual are known as ‘developmental programming’ (Sutton et al. 2016). These exposures include but are not limited to drugs, alcohol, maternal psychosocial stress, and teratogens such as pollutants. Earlier studies of pre- and postnatal environmental impact on the brain and behaviour have primarily focused on outcome measures such as mortality, physical growth, and internalizing and externalizing neurodevelopmental disorders. Later studies have, however, begun to focus on more fine-grained cognitive as well as academic outcomes, and their neural correlates, notably as cognitive and academic performance provide important measures of life outcome, including future well-being, health, and employment (OECD Education Working Papers). Thus far, links have been identified through animal models and epidemiological, prospective, and intervention studies in humans to identify the causal relationships and underlying mechanisms.