Children from economically disadvantaged communities have a disproportionate risk of exposure to chemicals, social stress, and learning difficulties. Although animal models and epidemiologic studies link exposures and neurodevelopment, little focus has been paid to academic outcomes in environmental health studies. Similarly, in the educational literature, environmental chemical exposures are overlooked as potential etiologic factors in learning difficulties. We propose a theoretical framework for the etiology of learning difficulties that focuses on these understudied exogenous factors. We discuss findings from animal models and longitudinal, prospective birth cohort studies that support this theoretical framework. Studies reviewed point to the effects of prenatal exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on reading comprehension and math skills via effects on inhibitory control processes. Long term, this work will help close the achievement gap in the United States by identifying behavioral and neural pathways from prenatal exposures to learning difficulties in children from economically disadvantaged families.

中文翻译：

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环境化学物质在学习困难病因学中的作用：一个新的理论框架

来自经济贫困社区的儿童接触化学品、社会压力和学习困难的风险不成比例。尽管动物模型和流行病学研究将暴露与神经发育联系起来，但很少关注环境健康研究的学术成果。同样，在教育文献中，环境化学物质暴露作为学习困难的潜在病因而被忽视。我们提出了一个学习困难病因学的理论框架，重点关注这些未被充分研究的外生因素。我们讨论了支持这一理论框架的动物模型和纵向前瞻性出生队列研究的结果。审查的研究指出，产前接触多环芳烃通过抑制控制过程对阅读理解和数学技能产生影响。从长远来看，这项工作将通过确定来自经济弱势家庭的儿童从产前暴露到学习困难的行为和神经途径，有助于缩小美国的成绩差距。