How Poverty Changes Kids’ Brains

http://nautil.us/blog/how-poverty-changes-kids-brains

by dnetesn • 11 years ago

85 116 11 years ago

jinushaun• 11 years ago

As someone who grew up poor (but not in utter poverty thanks to food stamps and free school lunches) and is now making good money in tech, I'm actually more concerned about the effects of HIGH income on kids' brains.

Unlike the overall negative tone of this study, I feel like poor kids actually have an advantage because they have a natural instinct to try harder to survive. Of course, there will always be those who simply give up because they think their station in life is set. It's probably more likely society and culture that keeps them down, not brain development.

On the other, rich kids have a skewed sense of need versus want, as well as effort versus reward. If everything comes easy, I'd argue rich kids are more developmentally challenged, possess less problem solving skills—especially under pressure—less able to deal with failure and less creative. Hence the "spoiled rich kid" stereotype. Whereas society constantly reminds poor kids all the things they can't do, rich kids are constantly reminded that they can do anything they want. Even well-meaning efforts like the "privilege" comic strip a while back reinforces this meme. I think that's where the real advantage comes from, and why the rich stay rich and the poor stay poor.

This is something very top of mind right now as I start to plan to have kids.

germinalphrase• 11 years ago

Perhaps true - but the advantages/opportunities associated with higher wealth/social status are significantly more likely to balance out sub-optimal personal development.

It's hardly a new idea, but one of the greatest advantages of wealth is the opportunity to take risks without feeling the true punishment of hard failure (regardless of whether those are professional or personal).

High water makes navigating the boulders a lot easier, so even if we assume that rich kids are less prepared to face challenges in life - on balance - that simply doesn't matter as much.

return03• 11 years ago

is the opportunity to take risks without feeling the true punishment of hard failure

Then it is not true a risk. I can see how this could lead to less effort.

lukasm2• 11 years ago

I've been thinking about this recently and these are my thoughts exactly. It leads to an interesting question. Do I have a competitive advantage as a startup founder growing up poor? Higher stress resistance (can chew a lot), no problem with low personal burn rate, better problem solving (no money for iPod from parents, run little business to get the cash)

coldtea2• 11 years ago

Do I have a competitive advantage as a startup founder growing up poor?

No, it's all offset from not having great connections with the right rich people, not having personal safety net and deposits to be able to work for long in some prototype, etc, things much more important.

It might work out for you, but in general there's not much for poor startup founders over rich ones.

realitygrill• 11 years ago

I'm not sure about growing up poor, but I'm pretty sure I've heard something about how a disproportional number of founders come from dysfunctional families. One even claimed that doing a startup felt natural to him, as the chaos of startup life was more similar to his upbringing. Apparently a regular job's stability made him uneasy.

cynicalkane• 11 years ago

What impresses me is that you described a good ability to deal with failure, and called it "less able to deal with failure". Because if you can ignore setbacks and achieve what you want, such that it's a "real advantage" where "the rich stay rich", that's a good quality to have.

Imagine if you said that at a job interview. "What's your greatest weakness?" "I think I can achieve great things (or make money, or whatever) and I don't let failure stop me." That's not a weakness.

wpietri4• 11 years ago

I think you've created a false contradiction here.

The study is about differences in brain shape and brain capability that come from poverty.

You're worried about differences in character that come from how you raise kids.

It's true that some rich parents spoil their kids. But I know plenty of people from affluent backgrounds that are just as scrappy under pressure because they've been raised well.

So as you raise kids, you could try to generate the experiences of being poor. E.g., you could make a checklist out of this article and its excellent comments:

http://whatever.scalzi.com/2005/09/03/being-poor/

Or you could instead try to teach them your values through experience.

coldtea2• 11 years ago

Sounds like the typical case of people who after having "made it" try to make it all about character and personal effort, ignoring the systemic issues poor people have to overcome that rich don't which give them a big advantage.

In other words, ignoring that while some poor kids may win in "hard mode" doesn't change the fact that rich kids play life in "easy mode", and as such, it's much easier for them to win, and much more of them will win, any merit and hard work put into it being equal.

It's like showing some succesful despite the odds black man in 1960 to show that "see, Jim Crow and racism doesn't matter, it's all a matter of will".

addicted• 11 years ago

And it's almost completely survivorship bias.

The hundreds of thousands of people who did not get stronger through their struggles are not represented, because they are not here to present themselves.

The actual stats are pretty clear in that richer kids do better and are happier as adults than poor kids.

baldfat6• 11 years ago

I feel like poor kids actually have an advantage because they have a natural instinct to try harder to survive.

Anecdotal evidence

Not to take away from your achievement BUT you are sadly the exception. You are not giving yourself enough credit.

I have adopted and fostered children from abusive impoverished lives. They are great and are in college but they still struggle to achieve it in a timely manner. They also struggle with grades though they actually are above average in intelligence.

PS Top .1 % income children are also impacted negatively but they have an easier fall back (Grow up and financial means to give themselves unlimited supply of alcohol and drugs) Where I grew up these rich kids were having 3rd world diseases like scurvy since they just ate what they wanted.

dijit• 11 years ago

Anecdotal but it's the same for me here, I grew up in the UK to a single mother who didn't work.

I worry any children I have will be spoiled (because I'll instinctively spoil them) and wont have the drive I do.

aantix• 11 years ago

You may want to check the research on this. The book escapes me, but I remember there being mounting research that says in general, long term stressors make you weaker, not stronger.

_What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Weaker_

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201008/...

"Developmental research has shown convincingly that traumatized children are more, not less, likely to be traumatized again. Kids who grow up in a tough neighborhood become weaker, not stronger. They are more, not less likely to struggle in the world."

You're probably successful in spite of, not because of, the circumstances of your upbringing.

qb45• 11 years ago

It doesn't have to be monotonic...

pdex6• 11 years ago

On the other hand suffering builds resilience and character.

https://ptgi.uncc.edu/files/2015/01/Positive-outcomes-follow...

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023034961045755602...

https://webfiles.uci.edu/rsilver/Seery,%20Holman,%20&%20Silv...

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-darkness/201111...

johnchristopher• 11 years ago

Unlike the overall negative tone of this study, I feel like poor kids actually have an advantage because they have a natural instinct to try harder to survive.

Natural ?

cm2012• 11 years ago

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https://img.washingtonp...

RobertoG• 11 years ago

Not to dismiss your experience, but I can see in my friend's children how important is your background.

I would bet (and is only a personal impression, I can't back it with data) that the effect shows in more than one generation.

If you compare parents that are more or less of the same socio-economic status now (because good public education, luck, talent, whatever), the parents that come from affluent households, see as normal that a children should have a foreign nanny, music formation, travel a lot.. this kind of things.

The parents that never had that in their childhood simply don't know how to do that because they didn't experiment that themselves. Of course they try, but it's obvious that it's not the same. Maybe, with luck, their grandchildren will be there.

I am talking about professional workers, not spoiled children of millionaires. I suppose that is totally other situation.

wnevets• 11 years ago

It appears you're a stones throw from saying any poor who don't go on to become successful are just lazy and unmotivated.

lilcarlyung• 11 years ago

Reminds me of this TED Talk.

Given the choice between a job candidate with a perfect resume and one who has fought through difficulty, human resources executive Regina Hartley always gives the "Scrapper" a chance. As someone who grew up with adversity, Hartley knows that those who flourish in the darkest of spaces are empowered with the grit to persist in an ever-changing workplace. "Choose the underestimated contender, whose secret weapons are passion and purpose," she says. "Hire the Scrapper.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQVEvkYuvWk

IndianAstronaut2• 11 years ago

I also wonder if the rich are also programmed to empathize with others less.

adam12• 11 years ago

Yeah, who cares about the small brained poor kids as long as there are some big brained poor kids that make it. /s

ENTP• 11 years ago

I agree. I grew up in similar circumstances and was raised on fried bread and second hand clothes. Now, I'm doing better than most of my peers. The drive to maximize situations balanced with being grateful for them never leaves. I see it as a good thing.

lintiness• 11 years ago

no attempt to understand the role genetics might play in all of this.

murbard25• 11 years ago

It's sad because that's an obvious hypotheses (IQ correlates to income and is hereditary) and they don't even put it an the table, at best for fear of being treated like pariahs, at worst because they have internalized the absence of genetic effect on intelligence and poverty as some indisputable axiom.

wpietri4• 11 years ago

When somebody doesn't state the thing obvious to a novice, it could be because it's not obvious to them, or because they're trying to hide something.

Or it could be because it's also obvious to them and was obvious years ago, and by now it's so banal and irrelevant to their day-to-day work that it's not worth mentioning.

Moshe_Silnorin2• 11 years ago

Denying the heritability of IQ and its attendant effect on class is just perpetuating the state they bemoan. Intelligence is heritable. Most people desire wealth. The more intelligence you have, the more able you are to achieve your desires. Smarter people, on average, will tend to become wealthier than less-inteligent people. Though regression to the mean certainly exists, even accounting for this their children will tend to be smarter than average, which will be caused by differences in brain structure. Obviously this is neither fair nor good. But natural selection is a lecherous Lovecraftian horror - we should not expect it to be fair. It's up to us to fix it. Sticking our heads in the sand an pretending everyone is equally intelligent isn't going to fix anything.

If IQ is hereditary (which the evidence really does support) improving the lives of impoverished children is an engineering problem - nothing some pretty doable advances in embryo selection won't fix, basic embryo selection gives you about a standard deviation per generation, iterated embryo selection takes you to the edge of human capability in one conventional generation. The fact that IQ is heritable and increases human productivity is reason for hope. Biology is mutable, society is fixed:http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/09/10/society-is-fixed-biolog...

ceejayoz6• 11 years ago

Assuming the participants for both the experimental and control groups are randomly selected (it says they'll be recruiting 1k low-income families for use as the experiment and control), genetics should be pretty effectively ruled out as a variable.

murbard25• 11 years ago

What type of control are you suggesting? If you want to rule out genetic effects, you'd have to look at adaption studies.

cryoshon• 11 years ago

Well, you could argue that their understanding of it is implied.

Aside from simple heredity, stress during pregnancy and early life could make its mark on the child via epigenetics. We know already that this happens in mice-- a young mouse that is touched by its mother receives beneficial epigenetic changes (lower life stress, etc) than mice that are not touched by their mother or not touched a sufficient amount. There are doubtless such mechanisms at play with humans.

lucozade• 11 years ago

In the article the researcher does say that she wants to move from a correlation study, which this is, to a controlled study. They're trying to get funding/approval for that.

TBH I'd prefer that researchers at this point would stick to saying that they've made an interesting observation, which they have, and do less of the speculation.

Though that would have made a very short and quite dull article so I understand the urge to extrapolate a bit.

scottmwinters• 11 years ago

I'm rather tired of hearing that people are a product of their environment. "Its not your fault you dont do anything with your life, its what you were born into" is dumb as hell.

Also, this study doesn't look remotely thorough. Correlation does not imply causation. Explain the test parameters better, etc, etc.

People are responsible for their own actions and own lives, not their environments. Lets move on

eberfreitas• 11 years ago

People are responsible for their own actions and own lives, not their environments. Lets move on

I also think that correlating income with the shape of the brain is not really the case here. Link bait maybe? But the real question is not if you can blame the action of one on another, but why people act as they act. To downplay the role of environment, upbringing and even income (and how if affects the social life of a kid) seems just as wrong.

themartorana• 11 years ago

But... It does matter. I'm personally pretty tired of hearing this "personal responsibility" line. While I agree adults have certain responsibilities, the idea that the cycle of poverty and crime are purely personal responsibility failings on enormous groups of people is not only scientifically wrong, but also terribly laden with consequences.

wpietri4• 11 years ago

Yes. The "let's move on" bit is a tell. It doesn't mean, "this is so obvious that everybody will agree once they think about it." It's a plea to stop thinking about it so as not to disturb his gut-level conclusion.

I can forgive that on some topics. We all have things we'd rather not think about, biases we're inclined to protect. But when the basic line of argument is, "I want to indulge my just-world bias [1] so please let's let young kids continue to live in misery" it seems monstrous to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

pdex6• 11 years ago

Personal responsibility has a great deal to do with it, I think the low income is largely incidental. If the parents have learned through generational poverty to reject the importance of education, critical thinking, mental stimulation, learning and creativity then I doubt these parents would have become financially successful or have a brain running on all cylinders.

One way to increase brain growth is mental stimulation and learning, and children are very dependent on their parents to provide such. When it comes to genetics, unless you're taking about inherited mental disabilities or developmental delays can certainly account for some lack of brain growth. Otherwise it's largely environmental.

If a family embraces the negative values of generational poverty chooses to imprint their children with the same intellectually repressive values/lifestyle upon their children, then the children would not be exposed to any brain-building activities or stimulation. What do you think the brain development differences would be between a kid who watches TV vs. one that's given a 1k piece jigsaw puzzle instead?

Luckily there are some parents in low income brackets that heavily invest in their children's learning and character development because they want them to have a better life. Some kids find mentors and support outside the home. Poverty doesn't doom any child, but it can make learning how to make better choices in life far more difficult if they don't have anyone who can teach or motivate them. Difficult, but not impossible.

I'm another child of poverty, grew up in a ghetto. All things were equal with the exception that my family placed a high value on education and they were highly involved and active in my learning.

danharaj2• 11 years ago

I think you're being overzealous. Literally all of one's actions are predicated on the environment one is in, and we live in a society where the less money one has the fewer options one has. Someone with your extreme attitude is just willfully blind to their relationship to the rest of society. I'm not sure what anyone gains out of such a mindset.

ceejayoz6• 11 years ago

Correlation does not imply causation.

https://xkcd.com/552/

"Correlation doesn't imply causation, but it does waggle its eyebrows suggestively and gesture furtively while mouthing 'look over there'."

The article, incidentally, acknowledges this aspect of things. "The only way to really test that is to move beyond correlational studies and conduct experiments."

"Its not your fault you dont do anything with your life, its what you were born into" is dumb as hell.

Few make that argument. The more nuanced and accurate version is "it's not shocking people with more obstacles to success fail more frequently".

01Michael10• 11 years ago

I just wanted to say congratulations in over coming your horrible childhood...

Personally, I can't relate to growing up in a ghetto with all the poverty, drugs and violence. You had no father? That sucks... It must have been real tough having various new "dads" move in over the years. Those ass beating probably helped keep you line. I am sure you forgive your mother today... When your bother got shot dead at 14 I am sure it inspired you to take a different path then him. Growing up with so little your whole childhood must make you really appreciate everything you have today.

Really, good job being able to take life by the horns and escaping all that to become a productive citizen.

ZenoArrow• 11 years ago

"People are responsible for their own actions and own lives, not their environments."

Sure, but their environment informs them about what is normal. To change beyond what is normal takes commitment. To give a silly example, do you walk around shopping malls in your pajamas? There's a social code that makes such an action stand out, even though in other parts of the world pajamas are more socially acceptable in this environment (admittedly, they look different from what we commonly think of as pajamas).

To give another example, if you grew up in a mining town, and your grandfather was a miner, and your father was a miner, and everyone else's father in the town was a miner, what do you think would be normal to aim for? I'm not saying you couldn't aim for something different, I'm saying you'd have to be committed to aim for something different, and be clear about what you want. If you're not clear about what you want, then it's likely you'll end up with the 'default option'.

TeMPOraL• 11 years ago

People are responsible for their own actions and own lives, not their environments. Lets move on

The point is, they are only to a degree. It's actually our cultural meme of pesonal responsibility that makes us blame everything on an individual's lack of discipline - even problems systemic in nature. And then we're surprised we can't solve obesity or poverty. Free will is overrated.

What confuses me a bit is that people are so quick to assume that everything is about discipline, and yet the entire marketing industry is one big proof that free will can be easily overriden by the environment.

gerbilly• 11 years ago

It's actually our cultural meme of pesonal responsibility that makes us blame everything on an individual's lack of discipline - even problems systemic in nature

This is the: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis

eevilspock• 11 years ago

Lets move on

Yeah, right? Inequality is so inconvenient.

littletimmy2• 11 years ago

People don't have the kind of free will that you suggest.

As Arthur Schopenhauer once said, "man can do what he wants, but he cannot will what he wants." The point being made here is that poverty strikes at the will that is beyond your control, so it is meaningless to say the poor have responsibility for their condition.

pdex6• 11 years ago

For children it is true that they have no control over the income level which they are born into, but that changes in adulthood when one has autonomy. Adults capable of making decisions that can change the course of their lives, whether they do that or not depends on their choices.

scott_s3• 11 years ago

The authors clearly understand the limitations of correlational studies, as evidenced by explicitly mentioning such limitations. You are ascribing conclusions to the authors they have not made.

jackcosgrove3• 11 years ago

Your post is not very thorough. A study of twins raised apart done by the University of Minnesota found that 70% of the variance in IQ can be associated with genetic variation, with the remainder associated with environmental variation.

http://web.archive.org/web/20120227061723/http://www.psych.u...

s73v3r4• 11 years ago

Except as has been shown time and again, IT DOES MATTER. Trying to put all of it on just the person, regardless of whether they grew up successful or unsuccessful, is completely ignoring the huge factors at play, most importantly, the factors that we as a society could actually have an impact on.

pdex6• 11 years ago

Like what? That would make for interesting discussion. Unfortunately, throwing money at the generational poor won't change their culture.

How does society ensure that parents are providing proper mental stimulation for their growing children? Crafts, puzzles and books can be incredibly cheap. But even if these are given away for free will they be accepted or shunned for TV and video games?

How does a society fix bad parenting? There's parental rights involved that limit how far that can go. For example, we can't declare a parent unfit just because they're poor, and we can't force them to raise their children in better ways.

How does a society intercept and prevent parents from imprinting generational poverty culture on their children? This is a problem for children of other income brackets as well where the parents are absent and don't teach their children how to be smart, responsible adults. I knew quite a few people in college who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths that are now in poverty once their parents cut them off and they weren't taught how to make it on their own.

interfixus• 11 years ago

"As neuroscientists, we believe that nothing could be further from the truth. We know that the developing brain is very malleable. We believe that the differences we reported are largely the result of experience, and have every reason to believe that by changing those experiences—through preventive measures or interventions—we can change children’s trajectories for the better"

That's an awful lot of belief and very little inquiry concerning the genetics behind results as reported.

danharaj2• 11 years ago

Neuroscientists also believe that all mental behavior can be correlated with physical processes, but you will not see this belief justified every time it is brought up. In research level geometry you will not see the definition of manifold in the preamble of every paper, nor will you see a reference for each standard theorem used. All domain experts have knowledge which they do not attempt to justify to other domain experts, and someone on the outside looking in cannot readily discern what is widely-held and justified knowledge and what is widely-held but unjustified knowledge.

It gets even worse actually. Every scientific discipline has "folklore": Results commonly known by experts but not organized for pedagogical purposes anywhere. Unpublished theses, coffee table discussions, lecture notes that are distributed in private, etc. So even if one knows where to look in the literature to find evidence for a claim, it might not even be there. One may have to talk to an expert directly.

scott_s3• 11 years ago

The preceding question mentioned an experiment they are running which can help test this belief. I think you're not giving the authors enough credit by not mentioning that they clearly understand their beliefs have not been tested:

"The only way to really test that is to move beyond correlational studies and conduct experiments. I’m part of a team of social scientists and neuroscientists from around the country who are planning to do just that: We’re currently fundraising for and piloting the first clinical trial of poverty reduction."

ideonexus• 11 years ago

When I was going to become a father, this became a subject of great interest for me. I want my children to grow up in an environment associated with the highest-possible IQs. In my research, I learned that President Nixon created the social welfare program WIC because the science of the time overwhelmingly indicated that malnutrition and childhood stress was causing children to grow up to become a burden on society. If society spends the money on social welfare programs to alleviate that stress in childhood, we save money on having to incarcerate or support adults who are incapable of contributing to society.

That said, this article is extremely light on the science and history of how and why we know what we know. I've written an essay on the history and hard-science behind why we have social welfare and how we know why poverty influences IQ if anyone is interested in learning more about it:

https://medium.com/@ideonexus/the-scientific-imperative-for-...

This is not new information. We have known about this correlation--and more importantly the causation--for decades. I wish it would become common knowledge so we can stop rediscovering it and debating it each time it comes up.

kefka2• 11 years ago

"But the $X cost I can ignore now looks better on the books rather than 20 years down the line with $1000x cost it will cost to fix."

/kicking cans

yummyfajitas• 11 years ago

20 years later, do we have any evidence of a 1000x benefit, or even a 2x benefit?

IndianAstronaut2• 11 years ago

There is a strong link between intelligence and nutrition. In many places where parasites deprive people of nutrition, there is also a decline in cognitive abilities as well.

http://www.economist.com/node/16479286

spatulan• 11 years ago

So on one hand we have a scientific study, and on the other some guy on the internet with a pet theory.

dudul4• 11 years ago

Since it's been proven that most studies are not valid since not replicable, I don't know if there is much of a difference between the two :)

baldfat6• 11 years ago

Then you just threw out the baby with the bath water. This is reproducible study and what you are talking about is actually fraud that they can't be reproduced. Doesn't speak to this study or most studies like this.

The numbers are there in the project. You can reproduce your results from that. You can ask people the same questions that this study did. You can take from the same pool of people for your survey. You can also take MRIs of your sample.

Seems completely reproducible. It is an issue with the "So What...."

cblock811• 11 years ago

we also have snark and hostility :)

return03• 11 years ago

Your point? You know any studies disproving his theory?

enraged_camel• 11 years ago

That's not how this works. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim, not the other way around.

s73v3r4• 11 years ago

The one who's article we're commenting on right now?

s73v3r4• 11 years ago

Unfortunately, the people in charge of the social safety nets are going to be listening to only one of these. And it's probably not the science.

dang• 11 years ago

A comment like this breaks the HN guidelines by being both unvicil (calling names) and unsubstantive (a knee-jerk generality).

Please don't take HN conversations in this direction. Not only is there nothing wrong with sharing one's experience and wondering, those things are the life of good conversation. Meanwhile, comments like this one kill the interesting conversation, and pettiness takes its place.

Note that this has nothing to do with one's actual views. Look at how thoughtfully https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10745355 made a counterpoint. That's what we want here. This subthread is what we don't want here. We've detached it from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10744567 and marked it off-topic.

dudul4• 11 years ago

"Might some people see the data about poor kids’ brains as proof that these kids’ fates are set, and that they’ll never amount to much?

As neuroscientists, we believe that nothing could be further from the truth. We know that the developing brain is very malleable. We believe that the differences we reported are largely the result of experience, and have every reason to believe that by changing those experiences—through preventive measures or interventions—we can change children’s trajectories for the better."

Or how not to answer the question. Sure if the study is right it may be possible to apply preventive measures and avoid that, but that was not the question!

The question is: do you think that by growing poor, these kids are now "worthless". As in, is there no way to go back for the current poor children, not the ones in the blue sky future.

washadjeffmad• 11 years ago

Isn't that was the term "poor" feels like when you use it? When you think it about somebody you see?

There is a class of person in this world who were made slightly broken, and whose lives and conditions embody every aspect of the term we use to describe them: poor. Poorness in ability and work ethic, or else they would have earned wealth. Poorness in morals, because we all know poor are more disposed toward crime. Poorness in learning, or they would see how uncultured the way they live and behave is. Poorness in character, since they can't muster the resolve to elevate themselves from their state. Poorness in foresight and planning, since any money they get they squander. They are poor because they are poorly.

In so many ways, they are like children that need the scolding and guidance of those who have made something of their lives, or, at the very least, our mercy and pity for lacking what the rest of us have. When you do consistently poorly in school, you are not promoted to the grade for your failures. In the same way, poor people should not be elevated from their class except by their own means and efforts. And when their failures compound, though they resist, taking their children to be raised in better homes is a kindness that saves a life that might been ruined by their parents' poorness.

If any part of either of these passages rubs you the wrong way, why is it that you don't you do your shopping on that side of town or worry whether your doors are locked in some places more than other?

I know people exceptionally biased against those in poverty, who draw a broad line between "them" and "us", without being aware. And despite years of volunteerism, until I read "Poor Economics" by Banerjee and Duflo (http://www.pooreconomics.com/), I didn't really understand much about how poverty worked at any scale, and I'm glad for the excellent and sometimes damning research into its effects.

Children currently in poverty are not doomed, but resource scarcity is a tremendous drain on their ability to engage in risky but impactful changes. I think this complication is reinforced by mores on respecting elders and authority, who may command that children not value academic educations over the teachings of their family or religion or else risk punishment or conflict. Parents who didn't receive education can also be dismissive of its value, and prideful authoritarians can resent children who outgrow them too quickly. A good question, then, is, how do cultures and societies survive new information?

tosseraccount• 11 years ago

Is there a link to the source article?

I see "Ursache, A. and Noble, K.G. (under review). Socioeconomic Status, White Matter Development, and Executive Function." from the Lab's website.

It's not clear that poverty is causing the changes, but are merely correlated.

There could be many problems with the methods which need to be examined closely to see if the assertion that poverty is causing the changes is true and not something like poor parenting.

andrewl• 11 years ago

There's been a good bit of research into this at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Neuroscience & Society. Here's an overview:

http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~mfarah/research/socioeconomic-st...

mbesto• 11 years ago

Socioeconomic status is simply a proxy for the amount of engagement parents have with their children in the first 1000 days of a child's life. This is pretty well studied and documented by the Stanford infant learning lab:

https://web.stanford.edu/group/langlearninglab/cgi-bin/publi...

http://www.versame.com/research/

EDIT: Point being, lower socioeconomic households can speak more to their children for free, and the brain development would much greater match those in higher SES.

scott_s3• 11 years ago

The authors were asked about potential reasons, and responded with:

There are many pathways potentially linking family economic circumstances and brain structure and function, and we are very interested in two of them. The first is the investment, or “what money can buy,” pathway. Parents with more resources can buy more books and toys, afford better child-care experiences, provide housing in better neighborhoods, and provide better learning opportunities inside and outside the home.

The second possibility is the family-stress pathway: Families facing economic strain often deal with stressors that are associated with less responsive and less warm parenting. If the parents are very worried about how to keep the lights on, or they have to work that third job, they’re less able to be present with their kids.

I suspect it's a combination of the two.

s73v3r4• 11 years ago

"Point being, lower socioeconomic households can speak more to their children for free,"

Not if they're working two jobs.

talles4• 11 years ago

If this article were tackling extreme poverty, like in the families that literally wonders how tomorrow will be, I would probably agree with the finding that this scenario greatly affects the brain structure.

But implying that brain development is directly affected by the family income, without any other cultural aspect whatsoever, that's bullshit.

Brain development is not a money problem.

vinceguidry2• 11 years ago

It's not ignorance on the part of the journalists. They did not claim causation. In fact they outlined possible root causes.

The problem is how you are reading the article.

talles4• 11 years ago

"Families facing economic strain often deal with stressors that are associated with less responsive and less warm parenting."

"economy strain" -> poverty

"often deal with stressors" -> causes

"less responsive and less warm parenting" -> bad parenting

How come this quote doesn't read as implying causation? There's no further explanation of such correlation other than "parents are worried on how to keep the lights on". And that's a very simplistic and narrow attempt of an explanation. In other words, that's bullshit.

ommunist• 11 years ago

Is this somehow connected with Big Money influence on adult brains?

swehner2• 11 years ago

I feel this is unethical: "In this study, we’ll recruit 1,000 low-income families across the country at the time of their children’s birth. Half of the families will receive a large monthly income supplement, and half will receive a nominal monthly income supplement."

saint_fiasco2• 11 years ago

How is it different from giving half the test subjects a potential cure for cancer and the other half placebo? Scientist do that kind of thing all the time.

cko2• 11 years ago

Placebo doesn't mean "no treatment" - it could be the standard therapy, while an experimental drug is matched up against it.

droffel• 11 years ago

Actually, I can recall reading about a few double-blind medical studies that were terminated early, because of this very reason. The efficacy of the treatment was so overwhelmingly positive in the variable group, that it was deemed unethical to not give the treatment to the control group. I don't have a citation right this second, but if you want one, I can do some searching. If anyone remembers a particular case of this happening, I would appreciate a citation.

swehner2• 11 years ago

The difference is that with cancer trials one is close to death already (as far as I understand)

ceejayoz6• 11 years ago

Why unethical? The control group isn't being harmed.

bobby_9x• 11 years ago

Is it poverty or the culture and actions of the parents that raise these children?

I grew up poor, yet my family stressed education (I had a library card at 6 and checked out books every week for 10+ growing up). Myself and my 3 brothers all went to college and have somewhat successful careers. My dad is uneducated and grew up so poor, he couldn't even afford clothes.

Friends that I had that were poor didn't have that push in education and never went to college and are still in the same place they were when we used to hang out 15 years ago (minimum wage job..living paycheck to paycheck)

There are TONS of resources to get ahead and now with free Internet at pretty much every library in the US, you can get educated on many topics without paying a dime.

Have they looked at the children of immigrants that came to the US 30+ years ago? Many of these children went on to have successful careers and grew up in abject poverty.

A friend of mine works as a teacher in one of the poorest school districts in the US. She has heart-breaking stories about how no matter how much a child learns in the classroom, it's all negated when they get home because the parents either don't care, can't help (many don't have educations beyond elementary school).

The problem with articles like this is that it gives this false impression that there is no way to succeed in life if you are poor. It's doing a disservice to all of the people really do have a chance.

Money will always give you some sort of advantage in life, but that doesn't mean you can't overcome it with education (which is power).

Too many people are unwilling to sacrifice and do what it takes to succeed.

PebblesHD• 11 years ago

Its been said a few times already but I'd like to add in my own experience in this area. I grew up in an environment just above what could be considered the poverty line in Australia. Tiny house, no real toys, books, daycare etc. and with parents who had both worked in shops or sales their entire lives. Adding to this my father left when I was around 3 and didn't provide any support making things a little more difficult. When I was old enough to appreciate them my mum got me interested in books and technology, I couldn't get access to a computer but I went to the library and the local school a lot which had some basic tools I could use. This got me a good start in my love of technology and an enjoyment of learning that kept me going through school even when compared to my much better off cohort who were able to do things like powerpoint presentations in class etc. In the long run it didn't hurt me too badly, by the time I was getting to the end of high school I had put in enough part time work to get my own computer and sort of bootstrapped my own learning from that, going from programming to website creation and building from there, that has in a few short years taken me from the absolute bear minimum existence to quite a comfortable life as a 20-something working for a respected financial institution and attending uni. From that I absolutely feel that my experiences of living as I did drove me to want better and to work for my goals, I feel like my drive gave ma an absolute edge against my better-off peers, although I can't say I'm a picture of absolute mental health, I feel like I became a well rounded person despite my origin. With motivation, you can overcome disadvantages like being poor, although there are other things I was lucky to live without like abusive or totally unsupportive and unmotivated parents, against which I feel I would have a much lesser outlook and possibilities.

How Poverty Changes Kids’ Brains

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