The problems and stresses of poverty would seem to obviously effective cognitive function, as there’s a limiting factor we all know about called “having a lot on one’s mind”…often used as an excuse for some form of poor cognitive functioning in daily life.
Here’s a link to a story in WashPo that describes a fairly tiny little study published in Science magazine. Here’s the link to the article on Science Mag site.
There’s no live link to the actual study available, without subscribing to Science, which is costly…AFAIK. Here’s a link to the abstract for another article on “poor” and cognition.
Those who seek to offer effective DLE to people whose lives are overloaded with cognitive stressors must somehow deal with this reality when designing and implementing DLE. This is part of the overall “learning environment” which may include noisy and otherwise poor physical spaces for concentration, long commutes and tiring physical work, emotional problems with family members, chronic and untreated health problems, and a host of other “factors” effecting learning performance.