Children living in poverty in America are at the risk of growing up with the negative impacts of such a situation buried into their brain tissue, a new study published in JAMA Network has revealed.
About 22 percent of young Americans live in poverty, according to PBS News Hour. The problems that go with having to find food, shelter and healthcare affect their brain development long term.
"What was already discovered is there is an achievement gap between poor children and middle-class children," said Seth Pollack, one of the study's authors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, as quoted by Reuters. "Even when they move to better neighborhoods, children growing up in poor families tend to do less well in school than their less poor counterparts."
The researchers studied brain images and different standardized test scores of 389 children from four to 22 years old using the data from the National Institutes of Health taken between the years 2001 and 2007. They further compared the results of America's healthiest children, who come from better-income households. They met with these participants every two years for the scans and asked them to take tests that included but were not limited to visualization, math problems and comprehension.
Children among families in poverty exhibited a "systematic structural differences" in their brain and scored lower on the achievement tests, compared to kids from middle-income families, according to the study.
"There is a brain difference and an achievement difference between these (poor) children and middle-class children," Pollak said via Reuters. "Accounting for 20 or 25 percent of something complex like how well kids are doing in achievement tests is huge," the researcher added.
There is one positive indication to the study, however, as the researchers found no difference in the brain development of children in the lower-middle class versus those that come from the middle-income bracket. This means that there is hope for young children in poverty, if only educational and development programs offered to them during pre-school are devised in such a way that it will help stimulate their cognitive growth or provide the children stability.
"Scientific literature on the damaging effects of poverty on child brain development and the efficacy of early parenting interventions to support more optimal adaptive outcomes represent a rare roadmap to preserving and supporting our society's most important legacy, the developing brain," said Dr. Joan Luby in JAMA Network. "This unassailable body of evidence taken as a whole is now actionable for public policy," she concludes.
