Socioeconomic Status and Reading Development: Moving from “Deficit” to “Adaptation” in Neurobiological Models of Experience‐Dependent Learning

Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) is one of the strongest predictors of student reading outcomes, and these disparities have persisted for decades. Relatedly, two underlying skills that are required for successful reading—oral language and executive function (EF)—are also the two neurocognitive domains most affected by SES. In this review, we summarize current knowledge on how SES influences the neurobiology of language, EF, and their intersection, including the proximal factors that drive these relationships. We then consider the burgeoning evidence that SES systematically moderates certain brain–behavior relationships for language and EF, underscoring the importance of considering context in investigations of the neurobiological underpinnings of reading development. Finally, we discuss how disparities in reading may be conceptualized as neurobiological adaptations to adversity rather than deficit models. We conclude that by harnessing children's stress‐adapted relative strengths to support reading development, we may address opportunity gaps both ethically and efficaciously. Lay Children growing up in lower socioeconomic environments tend to perform worse on common measures of reading, language, and executive function. We review the current evidence of the neurobiological mechanisms underlying these disparities and contributing experiential factors. We argue that it is critical to consider these differences as biological adaptations to early adverse contexts. This reconceptualization may help reform education to reduce disparities in academic achievement while also highlighting children's contextually relevant strengths.