

Being Poor Can Suppress Children's mental abilities, study finds - trustfundbaby
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110110142004.htm

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gwern
> "Our findings suggest that socioeconomic disparities in cognitive
> development start early," says Tucker-Drob. "For children from poorer homes,
> genetic influences on changes in cognitive ability were close to zero. For
> children from wealthier homes, genes accounted for about half of the
> variation in cognitive changes."

Another way to look at it is to say that, in a perfectly nurturing
environment, everyone would achieve to the very peak of their genetic
potential, and then genes would account for all of the variation in cognitive
changes. So what deficits are there in the rich kids' environments that only
_half_ , rather than all, of the variation is genetic?

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bartonfink
I suspect that the average "rich" environment is lacking plenty of things that
a perfectly nurturing environment would have.

If you look at this through the lens of Maslow's hierarchy, a kid growing up
in a poor environment is going to lack the fundamentals needed for cognitive
development. He may be undernourished, for example. His guardians are probably
too busy trying to make ends meet to read to him. They may even actively
ignore him. He's handicapped right out of the starting gate and will likely
never have a chance to reach his genetic potential.

In contrast, a child growing up in a rich family will have access to plenty of
material goods. He's not going to worry about having to move 4 times in a year
because his parents keep getting evicted. He's going to get sent to the best
preschool money can buy. However, money can't buy him the drive to succeed on
his own - to self-actualize, if you will. He's grown up in an environment
where everything has been provided and nothing intrinsic to that environment
is going to push him. He'll get closer to his genetic potential than the poor
kid, but unless someone actively encourages him to develop his own potential,
he's not going to get all the way, and there's your gap.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_He may be undernourished, for example._

This is an insignificant issue in the US.

[http://www.who.int/entity/nutgrowthdb/database/countries/who...](http://www.who.int/entity/nutgrowthdb/database/countries/who_standards/usa.pdf)

 _His guardians are probably too busy trying to make ends meet to read to
him._

They certainly have time to read to him. The average person earning <
$500/week has 32 minutes/day more leisure than a person earning at least
$1181/week. They just choose to spend it on other things.

The average person earning < $500/week spends only 8 minutes/weekday reading
(10 minutes on the weekend). In contrast, they spend 2 hours 15
minutes/weekday watching TV (3 hours 15 minutes on the weekend). That's 45
min/day more than the richer person.

<http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t11.htm>

I suspect a big component of why the poor children don't develop as much is
because they observe their parents spending 2-3 hours/day watching TV, 8-10
minutes reading, and emulate those habits. (It's probably closer to 4
hours/day for the 80% of the poor who are not employed.)

The rich people observe their parents spending 15-30 minutes/day reading, less
TV, more sports, and emulate those habits as well.

A scary thought: most people spend more than 2 hours/day watching TV. Imagine
what might happen if everyone in America turned the TV off for an hour and did
something productive!

~~~
borism
but outlawing TV would be too much government interference, wouldn't it?

~~~
yummyfajitas
I could certainly get behind making "no TV, more sports" a condition of
receiving welfare/medicaid/etc.

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reader5000
I wonder how that relates to the study that poor kids hear less words than
their richer peers ([http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/132740565/closing-the-
achievem...](http://www.npr.org/2011/01/10/132740565/closing-the-achievement-
gap-with-baby-talk)).

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RickHull
Urgh, headline sucks! Does the study really find that being poor _causes_ a
limiting of mental ability? Or does being poor _correlate_ with a limiting of
mental ability?

My take is that bad nurturing causes the decline in mental ability, and wealth
is merely a reasonable indicator for quality of nurturing. This distinction is
important if attempts are made to mitigate the limitations.

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thisisnotmyname
I wonder if they controlled for family size.

I imagine a big effect on a child's cognitive development comes from the
amount of time they spend with their parent. If wealthier families have fewer
children, and therefore have more parental attention per child, that could
explain the disparity.

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mrleinad
I'm surprised at how these mindless studies keep on finding that if you don't
eat well when you're a child, your brain won't have enough resources to fully
develop. I thought we knew this from a long time ago.

How 'bout they do a study of how to feed the poor instead?

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mcclanahoochie
related? <http://mcclanahoochie.com/blog/2010/11/reaction-range-of-iq/> i
think so

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FD3SA
Ramanujan[1] had smallpox as a child and died due to malnutrition at the age
of 32. As much as we would love to believe otherwise, intelligence is a
genetic trait much like athleticism. Unfortunately, the former statement is
taboo in our PC culture, while the latter is common sense.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan>

