A paper by Dobson et al. entitled, “Socioeconomic attainment of extremely low birth weight survivors: the role of early cognition” was recently published in Pediatrics. The paper demonstrated that childhood cognitive abilities partially mediated associations between birthweight status (extremely low vs. normal) and adult income attainment. Early life cognition is a critical predictor of socioeconomic attainment in extremely low birth weight survivors, particularly in those born with neurosensory impairment.