Memory is one of the brain's most critical functions. It has the ability to store information about events and experiences that occur constantly.Pinel, J.P.J., & Edwards, M. (2008). A colorful introduction to the anatomy of the human brain: A brain and psychology coloring book (2nd ed.). USA: Pearson.2 Experiences shape the way memories form, so major stressors on socioeconomic status can impact memory development. Socioeconomic status (SES) is a measurement of social standing based on income, education, and other factors.Siegler, R., Eisenberg, N., DeLoache, J., Saffran, J., & Graham, S. (2014). How Children Develop (4th ed. New York: Worth. Socioeconomic status can differ cross-culturally, but is also commonly seen within cultures themselves. It influences all spectrums of a child's life, including cognitive development, which is in a crucial and malleable state during early stages of childhood. In Canada, most children grow up in agreeable circumstances; however, 8.1% are raised in households that fall into the category of low socioeconomic status. These children are at risk for many disadvantages in life, including deficits in memory processing, as well as problems in language development.

Working memory Working memory is a temporary storage system that is essential for the successful performance of the task at hand.Pinel, J.P.J (2014). Biopsychology (9th ed.). Boston: Pearson.

Brain functions

Hippocampus When creating new memories, the hippocampus and related structures of the brain play a key role in consolidation. Memory consolidation is the transformation of short-term memories to long-term memories, which is crucial in the acquisition of new ideas. Until they can be stored more permanently, these memories are temporarily kept in the hippocampus in a process known as Standard Consolidation Theory. From childhood the hippocampus is developing, and it continues to mature beyond adolescents. A major barrier when it comes to studying working memory development in childhood is that much of the data come from adults who recall on past events of their childhood, and not from the children themselves. This creates a problem in memory recall of those events that occurred when the hippocampus was still developing, and the working memory wasn't completely consolidated at the time. As people recall a former memory, the door to memory reconsolidation is opened. Reconsolidation refers to the retrieval of a memory from long-term storage to short-term working memory, where it is unstable and vulnerable to alteration. As reported by Staff et al. (2012), socioeconomic status measured early in childhood reared a significant difference in hippocampal size in adulthood, suggesting that there is in fact an impact on brain and cognitive development. Another study found that children from families with higher family income had larger anterior hippocampal volumes than children from families with lower family income, and this difference accounted for worse memory and language performance among children from families with lower family incomes. Spatial memory is another specialized function of the brain, and more specifically, the hippocampus. Spatial memory refers to experiences that are recognized by their surrounding environment. Many of hippocampal neurons are in fact place cells. Place cells are neurons that are activated by certain locations or environments. If a child is constantly in a maladaptive environment, their hippocampal neurons may be performing poorly, and memory development may be sacrificed.

Amygdala The amygdala is another structure of the brain that is involved memory development. The amygdala's role in memory formation is to extract the emotional significance of experiences, which may be positive or negative emotions. Children who grow up in positive households, develop to convey more positive emotions, than children who group up in negative households. Lower socioeconomic status generally increases tension and negative emotions within a household, which may impact the emotional memory development of the children via the amygdala. A lack of positive emotional development may impact memory development as well as continual cognitive development in other areas, such as sociability and depression.

Child development and socioeconomic status (SES) are positively correlated, especially with regards to the child's working memory. Low socioeconomic status environments with a high stress factor can increase the memory processing for a particular unpleasant event. However, just because memory processes are firing, it doesn't mean that the information stored is valid or accurate. Stressful environments impair a child's memories and increase the probability for reconsolidation and contamination of false information. False memories are recollections of events that did not truly occur. Older children are most likely to confabulate these false memories and illusions, than younger children. This may be because their memory and learning processes are more developed than younger children's', which allows them to reconstruct memories based on real events as well as imaginary ones.

Parental influence Learning and memory go hand-in-hand, as one cannot occur without the other. Learning involves experiences and how they alter the brain, while memory focuses on how those changes in the brain are stored and recalled. Lower socioeconomic status environments yield lower cognitive and intellectual development in children. Since children cannot choose the environments that they are raised in, parental influence can greatly aid or inhibit a child's cognitive development. Low socioeconomic status due to poverty is a leading cause in hindered cognitive development in growing children. A constant inadequate diet throughout early childhood deprives the brain of the nourishment it requires to develop and function successfully. Also affecting cognitive development is access to health care. Families with a low socioeconomic status cannot always afford necessary or beneficial health care for their children, which can hinder brain development, especially in later years when the brain is less likely to self-correct potential risk factors. A lack of intellectual stimulation can also decrease cognitive development in children, which can occur in households with a low income, that cannot afford supplementary activities or programs for their children's developing minds. One of the most dynamic inhibitors of cognitive development by parental influence however, is parental violence and negativity. Children who live in high-risk environments of parental abuse express fluctuations in their ability of attentional skills due to constant fear or safety concerns. Disturbance in attention can decrease both working memory and retrieval of long-term memories. If concentration is disturbed during recall, the memories that surface may be susceptible to reconsolidation, and the false memories that are created, due to lack of concentration, may solidify into inaccurate long-term memories. In a research model that looked at children living in environments of domestic violence and their relationship with memory, researchers found that children exposed to familial trauma displayed a poorer performance of working memory.

Education

Low working memory is becoming more of an issue today with children in the public school system. The education system plays a substantial part in developing the children's mind for working memory. However, families who are in the low socio-economic status can't always afford private school to provide the children with the highest quality of teachers and learning. A disadvantage to having children in public school system is that educators don't have time, the right tools or proper techniques to train the children to develop better working memory. Public schools are at a disadvantage when it comes to receiving the best education for working memory.Engel de Abreu, P. J., Nikaedo, C., Abreu, N., Tourinho, C. J., Miranda, M. C., Bueno, O. A., & Martin, R. (2014). Working Memory Screening, School Context, and Socioeconomic Status: An Analysis of the Effectiveness of the Working Memory Rating Scale in Brazil. Journal of Attention Disorders, 18(4), 346. Children who live in a low SES homes have difficulty learning how to develop and train the working memory. Working memory has slowly decreased over the growing years. Therefore, students become less motivated and have learning difficulties later on. Low working memory results in frustration, anger, being disruptive and failure to complete tasks. Some effects to students having a low working memory is they can be very easily distracted, low attention span, as well as forgetfulness. Children that grow up in a higher SES, can afford to have a better education.

Language development

Working memory gives the ability to keep languages, vocabulary and apt symbols readily available for communication with others and organization of thoughts. All of human kind utilizes language, and thus it has been widely recognized that children from areas of socioeconomic disadvantage are at high risk of delayed language development. Parents from higher SES tend to be of higher education and therefore understand more about child development and the necessities for proper growth. For this reason, parents from high SES homes are more likely to see themselves as teacher figures and their children as students ready to learn.Johnson, J., & Marting, C. (1985). Parents' beliefs and home learning environments: Effects on cognitive development. In I.E. Single (Ed.), Parental belief systems: The psychological consequences for children (pp. 25-49). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

Children

Socioeconomic disadvantages have created unequal differences among educational attainments for children and families from various socioeconomic backgrounds. Differences between parent to child dialogue differs in homes of Low to High SES families. In homes of low SES children, there tends to be less direct conversation with the child, fewer opportunities of book reading and much less time shared between child and parent about the same subject or event. This lack of dialogue slows the understanding of Syntax as children receive less opportunities to learn and understand the arrangement of their language. In homes of high SES children, mothers tend to speak more freely with their children about emotions and feelings, as well as attempt to directly follow up with what their children are saying. This proper and consistent verbal stimulation may add to a stronger verbal development than children from low SES families.

Considering language development is key for children to begin to convey themselves, grow and eventually detach from parents, it is important to display the differences among different socio-economic standings. In environments where children are spoken to and pushed practice words, first words tend to develop between 10–15 months. North American Children are some of the most typically studied families, they come from middle-class families with mothers who influence language development. Mothers from these families often use object-labelling for their infants. This allows children to use phonological reference by giving meaning and association to the words spoken by their mothers.