Early-life Exposure to Punitive School Discipline and Midlife Cognitive Outcomes

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INTRODUCTION: Suspension and expulsion are common in US schools and disproportionately target structurally marginalized children. No research has examined whether these punitive practices may have long-term cognitive-aging implications. METHODS: In the prospective National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 data (N=8021), we used confounder-adjusted linear models to investigate associations between early-life suspension or expulsion and global cognition, memory, and attention z -scores at age 50. Using interaction terms, we tested for additive scale effect modification by race, gender, and at their intersections. RESULTS: In all, 21.5% of participants had been suspended and 4.4% expelled, with Black men and women overrepresented among these early-life experiences. Punitive school discipline was associated with lower midlife global cognition, memory, and attention z -scores (eg, global cognition, suspension: : -0.21; 95% CI: -0.26, -0.15; expulsion: :-0.27; 95% CI: -0.38, -0.16). The expulsion-cognition association was stronger for men than women. DISCUSSION: Punitive school discipline-an exposure modifiable at multiple policy levels-is associated with lower cognitive performance in midlife, decades after school completion.

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