How Environmental Toxicants Affect Cognitive Development of Children Aged 5-12 Years Old

Abstract

Children’s cognitive development is increasingly put at risk due to ubiquitous environmental toxicants, threatening their physiological and cognitive health. Moreover, such environmental toxicants have further reached food and water resources, causing developmental delays which are profoundly unavoidable.
 This literature review studies how environmental toxicants might negatively affect the cognitive development of children aged 5-12 years old. The purpose of this paper is to spread awareness of the dangers that children are facing due to the increasing level of environmental toxicants. Throughout the paper, negative associations were found between most of the environmental toxicants and developmental cognitive test scores. Furthermore, the paper highlights the environmental injustices that create disparities in children’s cognitive health. 
 First, the main concepts and the methodology used in the paper is defined. Then the outcomes of environmental toxicants on children’s cognitive ability are described and the four main toxics examined are air pollutants, arsenic, fluoride, and lead. Of those four toxins, 3 were associated with lower cognitive scores in children. Moreover, errors and limitations of the paper are identified and recommendations for future studies are included.