Early brain health education improves earnings

Dallas students from an elementary school where at least 80% of students come from low-income families are projected to earn more than their high-income peers over a lifetime, thanks to education built on brain science, according to a study by the University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth and the Momentous Institute.

A case study tracked the progress of 73 alumni from the Momentous School, a private laboratory school serving students in prekindergarten through fifth grade in Oak Cliff. The 2016-2018 cohorts were compared with national data on outcomes from low-income and high-income students. Momentous School is operated by the Momentous Institute, a nonprofit that provides mental health services to 5,500 children and their families each year with bilingual licensed therapists.

The study found that 97% of the Momentous alumni who were tracked received a high school diploma, and 48% received a college degree. By comparison, 91% of the high-income students tracked by National Student Clearinghouse High School Benchmarks Reports earned a high school diploma, and 31% received a college degree. Using US Career Institute data on average lifetime earnings by education level, the researchers expect the Momentous students — tracked up to the bachelor’s degree level — to earn between $1.3 million and $2.7 million over their lifetimes, totaling $157 million in cohort earnings, according to the report. Those projections are 26% and 9% higher than the school’s national low-income and high-income peers, respectively, according to the report.

How is this possible? Momentous School emphasizes brain health, teaching age-appropriate neuroscience and mental health strategies starting at age 3, said Dr. Jessica Gomez, executive director of Momentous Institute. Students learn about brain structures, like the amygdala, and conduct projects on how the brain works by fourth and fifth grade, said Dr. Andrew S. Nevin, a research professor and the inaugural director of the Brainomics Venture at the Center for BrainHealth at UT Dallas. All of Momentous’ classrooms display illustrations of how the brain functions, and students learn skills for social and emotional regulation, Nevin said.

The study, led by Gomez and Nevin’s research teams, argues that teaching students neuroscience and mental health from ages 3 to 10 helps them consider how brain health shapes their choices throughout life. Studying the brain helps students recognise how emotions and stress impact learning, Gomez said. When students know how their brain works, they can better regulate their emotions, manage stress and keep their brain ready to learn, she said. Understanding how the brain works also allows students to improve their cognitive abilities, such as information processing, decision-making, and innovation, Nevin said. In an increasingly AI-driven world, these skills are crucial for education and the workforce, he said. “If you don’t have the ability to synthesise the information in a way better than AI can do, you’re not going to have a job in this world,” Nevin said, who added that their study was not submitted for peer review.

Dr. Jennifer Kitil is a postdoctoral research associate with the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. Kitil said social-emotional learning strengthens executive functions like self-control and flexible thinking — skills that will remain crucial as the workforce evolves. “AI can’t make ethical decisions,” said Kitil, who was not involved with the UT Dallas study. The aspects of social-emotional learning practices related to managing stress, setting goals or solving problems are grounded in brain science, as they strengthen specific brain areas responsible for learning and decision-making, Kitil said.

Persuading Texas to adopt neuroscience curricula in public schools would require demonstrating replicable results beyond the Momentous School cohort study, according to the neurologists and scientists interviewed by The News. These experts caution against overgeneralizing the case study’s broader implications.