Date of Award
5-2021
Thesis Date
4-2021
Degree Type
Honors Thesis-Unrestricted
Degree Name
B.S.
Department
Psychology
Degree Program
Psychology
Director
Tracey Knaus
Abstract
Socioeconomic status (SES) is defined as a multifaceted index of a person’s financial resources, education, and relative social status and is dictated by parental education, income, and occupation. SES has been known to impact neurocognitive abilities, such as language acquisition and development through distal systems, which includes variations in household income and education. These systems in turn affect language regions in the brain due to disparities in word exposure, exposure to chronic stress, and disparities in the exposure of varying complexity of words, causing language deficits. Language deficits are a core feature of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), and several studies demonstrate the atypical anatomy of these core language regions. We hypothesized that similar to findings in typically developing children, higher SES will be associated with larger gray matter volume and cortical thickness of frontal and posterior language regions within the ASD population. We found no significant correlation between SES and cortical language anatomy but found relationships between SES and language ability and/frontal gray matter. These results support the literature concerning causal links between SES and language and offer new insight into the intersection between SES, language, and ASD.
Recommended Citation
Tra, Lauren, "The Relation between Socioeconomic Status and Neuroanatomy of Language Regions in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder" (2021). Senior Honors Theses. 137.
https://scholarworks.uno.edu/honors_theses/137
Rights
The University of New Orleans and its agents retain the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible this honors thesis in whole or part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. The author retains all other ownership rights to the copyright of the honors thesis.