Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function

[Forty Two]

Like I said, I spent much of my working life in the education sector.

I'm not big on calling poor people stupid.

Poverty impedes cognitive function.

Right - makes people stupid. Impede means to obstruct or hinder. Cognition is the brains ability to learn and think. So, the social science "study" says it proves that being poor makes the brain less able to learn and think - i.e. impede cognitive ability means "make people stupid." I'm sure it's a quality study. Sounds like one. It's probably not another study designed to achieve an ideological goal by manufacturing a health crisis out of a social problem.

[Forty Two]

The most precious gift you can give your children is your time and attention.

Indeed.

They wait for their parents, with almost a yearning. I keep a conscious effort going to provide more time and attention than I think I have available to my daughters. It's important to care what they are doing and thinking.

[cronus]

One counter example proves it is all a comforting lie, idealogical bollards. By modern standards Sir Isaac Newton could be considered poor. No access to modern sanitation, medicine, culture or entertainments. Growing up in the middle of a civil war too. Yet, he still became the inventor of gravity etc....

[Forty Two]

Yeah, Paris Hilton is really smart.

She may be. Her appearance, and public persona, and teenage-to-twenty-something risky behavior, is not a reliable indication of her intelligence level. Steve Martin started out doing silly and dopey comedy routines, without any indicators of significant intelligence behind them. However, he is reputed to have among the higher IQ's in the entertainment industry.

[Forty Two]

Cognitively less well performing is a fancy way of saying "dumber."

You are deliberately misinterpreting the findings, but if you can't do subtle then OK. So what?

He's going to bat for all the working class kids who grew up without a book in the house.

Well, since the advent of the internet, a world of books exist a few clicks away, and at least in the US, the working class is loaded with internet access.

Every town in the US has a functioning, free public library, so the working class have free access to books on demand. Many people utilize them.

Also, used bookstores are common, with the price of them ranging to down to under a dollar even to this day. There are even book rental stores, where used books are loaned out for small fee to be returned, much like a library, but with different selections.

And, of course, we have standard bookstores almost everywhere, where for from about $2 to $25, depending on the book, books can be purchased. Barnes and Nobel always has a sale rack, where a selection of children's books are available for less than the price of a cup of coffee.

The working class has no shortage of available books or other reading material, starting at free.

I do go to bat for working class kids. The notion that their brains' "cognitive functions" are reduced because their parents are blue collar is bollocks.

[Rum]

No - it is because they aren't read to as much as in better off families. Pretty simple really.

[cronus]

No - it is because they aren't read to as much as in better off families. Pretty simple really.

When some have ADHD they are not gonna sit still for that. Is that inherited or diet? and if diet whose to blame when the cheaper foods are packed out with behaviour modifying chemicals? Also as for the poorer kids. Given their life chances in this system it is the ones who can read who'll be trouble later. I've seen this happen. Lots of poorer kids turn to drugs etc later having the smarts to see how the deck is weighed against them. Take a full on revolution to alter that dynamic. Not modification of the individual, but the society holding them back and down.

[Forty Two]

No - it is because they aren't read to as much as in better off families. Pretty simple really.

Is that what the study said?

If so, then poverty doesn't cause "impeded cognitive ability" - failing to read to children does.

[Rum]

No it doesn't say that but it should. My personal interpretation of their findings based on my professional experience research I have read is that reading to children prior to school age is an indicator of better attainment later on. It is also the case that poorer families with lower expectations and/or aspirations for their children do not read to their children as much for whatever reason.

That, in my opinion, is what is behind their findings. Poverty makes you dumber, sure. Poorer parents don't read to their kids.

I'm not making any value judgments here. I'm a red blooded socialist.

[pErvinalia]

Like I said, I spent much of my working life in the education sector.

I'm not big on calling poor people stupid.

Poverty impedes cognitive function.

Right - makes people stupid. Impede means to obstruct or hinder. Cognition is the brains ability to learn and think. So, the social science "study" says it proves that being poor makes the brain less able to learn and think - i.e. impede cognitive ability means "make people stupid." I'm sure it's a quality study. Sounds like one. It's probably not another study designed to achieve an ideological goal by manufacturing a health crisis out of a social problem.

Nice conspiracy theory.

[pErvinalia]

One counter example proves it is all a comforting lie, idealogical bollards. By modern standards Sir Isaac Newton could be considered poor. No access to modern sanitation, medicine, culture or entertainments. Growing up in the middle of a civil war too. Yet, he still became the inventor of gravity etc....

He might have come up with General Relativity if he wasn't so cognitively impaired...

[cronus]

http://quillette.com/2015/12/01/why-par ... bly-wrong/

Peer groups impede cognitive function according to this article above, Rum is too close to his subject to make a objective observation....and it is a good reason to reverse the ghettoisation of poverty.....anything that forms a group becomes stronger for it, even stupidity. Stands to reason really.