Poor Children's Brain Activity Resembles That Of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows

Science Daily ^ | Dec 6, 2008 | Staff

[ConservaTexan]

Poor Children's Brain Activity Resembles That Of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows

According to lib logic used in regards to Terri Schiavo, it is time to pull the plug.

[Kevmo]

bmflr

[freespirited]

I don't buy the causality that is implied in the article.

Nor do I. You'd think these Berzerkeley people would be bright enough to realize that these "poor kids" nonetheless enjoy living conditions superior to that of 95% or more of the U.S. population prior to WWII. That includes the parents of a lot of FReepers, including mine. Yet I will hazard a guess that few if any of us who had parents who grew up dirt poor can imagine that they would have tested as low functioning.

I agree with the poster who suggested that the children have most likely inherited their parents low intelligence. Giving such children "equal opportunity" will not produce the same outcome as in children of high intelligence. Our goal should be to insure such children develop to the best of their abilities... not to have them chase some liberal pipedream.

[WesternPacific]

I don't buy the causality that is implied in the article. The low functioning measured in the EEG isn't going to be fixed by throwing money at the problem.

I believe you're right. It is lack of cognitive stimulation in their environment, (illiterate parents and other care givers).

[conservative cat]

My husband grew up dirt poor... he’s one of the most brilliant people I know.

My husband, too, and he's pretty bright. He could have done a lot more with more opportunity, though.

This is totally a chicken vs. the egg argument... And they think we are all are as slow as their test subjects.

[fightinJAG]

Would that be because they’re poor or because they’re not smart?

[Clemenza]

Would that be because they’re poor or because they’re not smart?

Chicken or Egg?

[wac3rd]

I hear Obama cures all frontal lobe disorders, and will fill your gas tank!

Hope!

Change!

(Bulls***)

[RJL]

University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown for the first time that the brains of low-income children function differently from the brains of high-income kids.

Let me guess... A new stiff tax is the way to cure this problem.

[AZLiberty]

To follow the left’s own reasoning (as in the case of Trig Palin), all poor kids should be aborted because they might grow up to be below average.

[Fire_on_High]

Museums?! Books! BOOKS!!!!!!!!

[April Lexington]

Oh, great! We just elected one president!

[SiVisPacemParaBellum]

How enlightening Berzerkley, now we can fix all of our social ills with guess what? More money. We'll make the 'poor' rich and the 'rich' poor and all will be fine with the lil' one's gray matter.

(They must have just finished watching 'Trading Places'.)

[Lockbar]

Dude, I’m going back to drinking lead based paint straight out of the can.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

“His reply was something like for the price of a bag of potato chips, you could buy two dozen eggs, a bunch of veggies and so on.”

I have read (and from my own limited observation, I believe it to be true) that a lot of these inner city neighborhoods don’t have regular grocery stores where you can buy said eggs, veggies, etc., though there are 7-11’s and so forth where you can buy doughnuts and chips. Transportation is a big issue for a lot of poor people: it is difficult to buy a bunch of groceries at a regular store and then haul it all home on the bus. (When I was in grad school I had the same problem — there was no grocery store nearby and I didn’t have a car, so getting decent groceries back to my pad took some conniving.) I’m not saying that a lot of poor people could not make better choices, but sometimes it isn’t as simple as it looks.

[Othniel]

I've known several poor kids who are very smart. One of them is in a magnet high school for kids interested in the health professions. My own boys get A's, top out on the state tests (my ten year old scored 100% on four of the seven sections.), and we aren't poor. What we did, though, was talk to them from day one, spend time reading with them, and took advantage of opportunities to stimulate their little grey cells. It depends a lot on the parents whether a kid does well. Some genetics, sure, but qualities the kid has, like attention span, linguistic ability, and abstraction, are things parents can teach.

[fightinJAG]

I agree with that.

[realdifferent1]

University of California, Berkeley researchers...

That's all you need to know. Anything from Berkeley is suspect.

[Ballygrl]

I don’t think it has to do with poverty at all, I think it’s because we have not so smart parents having kids.