oh for goodness sake, those people who are minimising this article or claiming the findings are bs...

Its a fact if a child does not get enough calcium they can develop osteoporosis later in life even in childhood there bones break very easily. If a child lives on sweet drinks they get cavities... plenty of examples... it is just a matter of cause and effect. Action and consequence. Simple. What makes the brain any different from any other part of the body? Fatique is reduced when you eat... children are more perceptive, alert if they have eaten. Many children in Australia were going to school without eating breakfast. It became a National initiative to re educate families, address this problem.

I am not surprised to read this at all... perhaps you would be interested in studying the MRI's of abused neglected children. Really is there for all to see.

reply to WyrdeOne

Although I agree that the results were in many ways predictable, I still think this study is important. Politically, because it demonstrates that by age 10 there is an actual biological handicap (statistically speaking – of course individuals will vary) correlated with poverty. Perhaps it will help lay to rest the idea that people who don't work their way up out of poverty are just constitutionally lazy.

Scientifically, because now they can move on to the "why" and "how can we change it" questions.

Reading through the article, it appeared to me that they had controlled for factors like race and family size, but again this is such a small study that you can't make any specific predictions anyway.

Originally posted by WyrdeOne
Basically, nothing has changed in the last ~3000 years, and we should all just stop trying to equate technological progress with social progress. Welcome to Feudalism v.2.0.0.9.

Here I disagree. What has changed from the last 3000 years is that we now have an increasing gap between the poor and the well-off, in terms of education, technological skills, and even brain function – all in a world that is increasingly dependent on the ability to successfully navigate complicated and ever-changing landscapes. In other words, unless we can do something to stop this process, we can look forward to a future where technological progress is equated with social inequalities.

________________________________

EDIT: to address issue raised by Asmeone

I think this study is perfectly reconcilable with your experience that the low-income kids did not take advantage of opportunities for social advancement even when they were offerd. They have a built-in block to socioeconomic mobility if these findings are correct, and the fundamental lack in brain development has to be addressed before we start trying to force them into college.

[edit on 12/3/08 by americandingbat]

Makes sense to me. The children of families that are better off generally have the genes and the means to be more intelligent.

I can completely agree with this study for one main reason..

Rich kids usually have parents who have acquired higher levels of education, while poor families are usually a result of lack of education. This means that growing up in a family where the parents have a masters or Ph.D, obviously the child will learn more advanced forms of problem solving, grammar, and so on due to constantly being around well educated parents. On the other hand, the poor families often never went to college, or lack the ambition, knowledge, or general know-how to succeed in life. This means the children growing up in that environment learn what their parents learn, essentially not much.

Think of it like this, a child of a doctor vs the child of a burger king cook :

Doctors child:
- advanced science,
- advanced grammar,
- better schooling,
- playmates are raised the same,

Burger king child,
- very little science if any,
- most likely poor grammar,
- cannot afford the best schools,
- playmates in same position,

I look at how my sister is currently raising her child, teaching him spanish and english by the time he is 3, has money to afford electronic math, grammar, and science games, can afford to send him to a good pre-school, spends time at home with him instead of working 7 days a week to try to make ends meat.

A poor child would not have many of these chances, and therefore I can see how it makes sense that they do not develop the same way as a more well off child. I think the difference between middle class and rich would be very small, but a child of poverty really has a different environment from birth until schooling - which are some of the most important years of a childs life.

I think this study is pretty accurate. People in this thread say things like Einstein and Tesla weren't from affluent families so it's all rubbish, but they're looking at a few anomalies. Bill Gates dropped out of college so does that mean everyone should drop out? Just because you're from a rich family doesn't mean you'll be smart, but I would say overall the chances are better. Most of the points have been made but I'll hit them again. A rich family can provide more opportunities and stimulus than a poor family. Just take summer vacation for example. The rich kids probably go to foreign places, attend camps, see tutors etc A poor kid might be left alone to watch mindless tv while the parents work. Malnutrition is also a huge thing and just imagine being hungry trying to learn not to mention deficiencies in things vital to optimal brain function. The parents education level also plays a pretty big part. For one thing if the parents have advanced degrees etc chance are the same is expected from the children and the standard is set very high from the beginning. I would also imagine as other have already stated that educated parents would expose their children to more stuff from books and technology to advanced ways of thinking, vocabulary etc.

[edit on 3-12-2008 by warpboost]

The most notable aspect of his study is that it based on developmental dynamics and does not delve into the genetic or the pre-disposed. Doing so would open an ethical and sociological pandoras box.

I guess what we're really talking about here is "potentiality" and how a child's environment (nurture) affects brain development.

Still I think the sample of subjects (26) is way too small to make a clear determination. A child's socioeconomic status has different affects in varied circumstances. For example, an inner city child living below the poverty threshold may have fewer, or at the very least different, opportunities for mind development than let's say a child growing in a farm under the same economic hardships. Differentiation of environmental stimuli must be taken into account into any study attempting to quantify child development. With such a limited sample, any result is bound to be too broad and inconclusive.



[edit on 12/3/2008 by schrodingers dog]

I'd like to see rich families start "adopting" poor kids. You don't have to take them away from their parents, but you can kind of take them in and provide for them the same nutrition and mental stimulation that rich kids receive. When these children are successful, they can be shown off as examples of what can be achieved by such an approach. The only way we are going to solve these problems is one child at a time.