How do children really succeed? According to Paul Tough, it is not just innate IQ, or a high ACT score that determines both academic and life success; it is a set of characteristic traits. Those characteristic traits consist of: conscientiousness, grit, resilience, perseverance, and optimism.
The prefrontal cortex is responsible for all types of activities; both emotional and cognitive. Early childhood stress can exacerbate the development of cortex. As a result, children who experience more stress in their adolescent stage generally find it more it more difficult to concentrate and follow directions; which has a direct correlation with their ability to perform well in an academic setting.
A catch phrase that is in vogue at the moment is "executive function". Executive function is simply the collection of higher-order mental abilities. What is surprising, is that improving executive function seems like a potential for closing the achievement gap between the poor kids and the middle-class kids. Furthermore, research indicates that poverty itself, "was not compromising the executive function abilities of the poor kids. It was the stress that went along with it."
The good news is that prefontal cortex is extremely malleable and responsive to intervention. So, if a child's environment can be changed in specific ways to improve executive function, it can increase the ability to become more successful.
"This message can sound a bit warm and fuzzy, but it is rooted in cold, hard, science. The effect of good parenting is not just emotional or psychological, the neuroscientists say; it is biochemical."Often times, the most daunting academic obstacles children of poverty face are: "a home and community that create high levels of stress, and the absence of a secure relationship with a caregiver that would allow a child to manage that stress."
