Posted on 12/06/2008 6:46:25 PM PST by fightinJAG
ScienceDaily (Dec. 6, 2008) — 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.
In a study recently accepted for publication in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, scientists at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and the School of Public Health report that normal 9- and 10-year-olds differing only in socioeconomic status have detectable differences in the response of their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is critical for problem solving and creativity.
Brain function was measured by means of an electroencephalograph (EEG) – basically, a cap fitted with electrodes to measure electrical activity in the brain – like that used to assess epilepsy, sleep disorders and brain tumors.
"Kids from lower socioeconomic levels show brain physiology patterns similar to someone who actually had damage in the frontal lobe as an adult," said Robert Knight, director of the institute and a UC Berkeley professor of psychology. "We found that kids are more likely to have a low response if they have low socioeconomic status, though not everyone who is poor has low frontal lobe response."
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencedaily.com ...
Did they do IQ tests on both groups of children at the same time?
I thought we fixed this by getting rid of all the lead paint and resulting paint chips the poor kids were munching on?
I wonder if these researchers would like to compare the intelligence of urban vs rural or conservative vs liberal people. Better yet I wonder if they’ll let a truely unbiased team do the study.
Pure BS from Socialists. You can’t associate an effect with only only one cause when multiple causes of the effect are possible in a subject. Of course the stat. guys will disagree.
How many were FLK’s (funny looking kids without an obvious cause) as we used to say before it became politically incorrect.
Exactly. Substance abuse by both the mother AND the father can affect childrens' brains. There is a high incidence of children who suffer Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in the Native American population. I'm sure it is a factor in other low income children, as well.
Hmmmm..., so money buys higher IQs....
I’m sort of tired to hearing so much propaganda such as this. I believe in giving to the poor. However, once back in the Rodney King days or rioting, the news media reported that “they are rioting in the ghettos because they’re hungry”. Rush commented at that time that the video he was seeing of the rioters showed rather that the looters and rioters were fat, muscular and well fed, probably on food stamps. - I remember a teacher commenting that the black girls at her school would sit down and eat a jumbo sized bag of potato chips at one sitting, while the so-called “rich” kids would eat a small bag of chips. Education in nutrition may well be the most needed commodity rather than more money to buy junk foods. However, that goes without saying that the kids would have to take any nutritional education to heart instead of rebelling if they didn’t get pizza every night. (I realize this is not PC. The truth hardly ever is.)
Yep.
Paging The Bell Curve.
Reminds me of an interview I read with Jamie Oliver, the Naked Chef. He’s been on a campaign to get the schools in England to serve more nutritious lunches, rather than junk food.
The interviewer said something like “well, isn’t it hard for poor people to eat well because it’s more expensive?”
He was indignant and said “NO.” 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.
He said it wasn’t the money, it was the choices.
The interviewer was . . . uh . . . next . . .
Equality of opportunity is no guarantee of equality of outcome. Those who offer the opportunity have no control over what you bring to the table nor how much effort you make to succeed.
However, wretched cognitive development may be the cause of most poverty.
Choices, stimulation, involved parents. The list could go on and on.
It takes intelligence to make intelligent choices. Sure, smart people can have great lapses in discipline, addictions, and so on, but overall they make better life choices than not-smart people.
More information does make a non-smart person smart.
Oooh, I hear the crinkling of a toilet paper hat as we speak.
Somebody need to explain Yogi Berra to me. LOL
Generally, in this country you are poor because you have no idea how to not be poor, i.e. get away from areas with no jobs, get an education in a field that actually pays a decent salary, learn a marketable skill, DON’T HAVE CHILDREN OUT OF WEDLOCK, etc.
“It’s really not that difficult to hold down a good job in this country.”
That depends if you have some marketable skill or not. I’m an engineer at a factory where the unskilled machine operators make $28/hr with benefits. We are going through a serious slowdown and those unskilled people (who literally lucked into their jobs) are going to be hurting when laid off and all they are qualified at doing is unskilled labor.
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