#Rooted in the hearts of poor children separated brains smaller #
For children in poverty, poverty deprives more than just basic material needs.
I believe there is a fact that everyone knows - children from poor families are not as good as their peers overall.
For children from poor families, it is more difficult to go to college and get a degree, and they are less likely to find a good job and get a high salary as an adult.
Equally tingling, however, even the level of brain development has been shown to have a lot to do with poverty.
So, how exactly does poverty affect brain development?
One study explored the relationship between a family's socioeconomic status, including measures of income, educational attainment, and occupational prestige, and children's brain health.
Studies have found that differences in the size, shape and function of children's brains are related to rich and poor.
Overall, children from poorer backgrounds tended to perform worse on tests of language, memory, self-control, and concentration.
The results were published in the 2015 issue of Nature · The journal Nature Neuroscience is also the largest study on the issue to date. The study analyzed the brain structures of 1,099 children and adolescents of different socioeconomic statuses from 10 regions across the United States.
The specific results found:
Parents' educational attainment and household income are related to the surface area of the child's cerebral cortex.
Children with an annual household income of less than US$25,000 (about RMB160,000) have a cortical surface area 6% smaller than children with an annual household income of more than US$150,000.
The correlation between household income and brain structure is most pronounced in the lowest income groups, but tends to weaken in the higher household income groups. In other words, in the poorest households, household income has a greater impact on brain structure.
The pressure of life brought about by income gap and the different parenting styles of parents can lead to differences in children's brain structure. In low-income families, for example, parents give their children less support and children are more likely to develop hostility, which leads to negative outcomes — in this study, the hippocampus was smaller.
In addition, children with higher household incomes are more likely to concentrate and suppress inappropriate behavioral responses. This may explain why children from low-income families have 15 to 44 percent lower academic performance than others (John Gabrieli).
It is worth noting that the brain is related to the difference between rich and poor, but it is not equal to causal relationship.
In other words, differences in brain structure caused by poverty may also be influenced by other factors.
Therefore, whether a child's "smaller brain" is caused by a poor family environment or related to the family environment, nutrition, parental support, or other experiences in the process of growing up is also worth further exploring.
But in any case, poverty leaves people backward.
While household income isn't the only factor that determines a child's trajectory, from real life or research data, if you want your child not to fall behind, the family economy must keep up.
At least in the early stages of a child's development, it is imperative that the family provide the best possible parenting support, as well as more attention and companionship!
Whether parents want to rely on the next generation to turn the tables, in the critical period of children's growth, have a sound brain, this may be your best gift to ta!
#How much poverty affects people's minds and bodies#
#穷人家的孩子, what makes you feel powerless#
#大脑 #
