by KYW's Dr. Marciene Mattleman
Philadelphia has a poverty level of 25% and many other areas in the tri-state region have heavy poverty as well.
For years researchers studied the effects of being poor on kids’ achievement—the environment, lead, and experiential factors like having fewer toys and museum visits and parents without time and energy to read and talk with their children.
Now, Gary Evans, at Cornell University provides evidence from studying children from 195 families for 14 years, that chronic stress from growing up poor—households with job loss, delinquent bills, moving often--appears to have impact on the brain in working memory.
Working memory, the ability to remember information in the short term, critical for vocabulary and teacher directions, has a direct effect on school performance.
According to Evans, those who spent their entire childhood in poverty scored about 20% lower on working memory than those who were never poor.
Such data, plus Evans’ work on physiological factors, reported in The Washington Post, has much to say to policy makers.
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