RTKids in low-income households lag behind their peers from wealthier families when it comes to standardized testing. Their brain anatomy could be a factor, with the research exposing a “cost to not living in a supportive environment.”
The researchers compared students’ scores on the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) with brain scans of the most highly developed part of the human brain – the layer often referred to as “gray matter.” The cerebral cortex is responsible for thinking, perceiving, producing and understanding language.
Using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) researchers at MIT and Harvard University came to the conclusion that the higher-income students have thicker brain cortex in areas associated with visual perception and knowledge accumulation. In most other measures of brain anatomy, the researchers found no significant differences. The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, did not provide possible reasons for these particular differences in brain anatomy, however.
The researchers point out that the structural differences they discovered are not necessarily permanent. “There’s so much strong evidence that brains are highly plastic,” MIT’s professor of brain and cognitive sciences, and one of the study’s authors, John Gabrieli, said. “Our findings don’t mean that further educational support, home support, all those things, couldn’t make big differences.”
“To me, it’s a call to action. You want to boost the opportunities for those for whom it doesn’t come easily in their environment,” he added.
But, as Gabrieli noted, there’s a “real cost to not living in a supportive environment. We can see it not only in test scores, in educational attainment, but within the brains of these children.”
While previous studies have also described brain anatomy differences associated with income, they didn’t link those differences to academic success.
“A number of labs have reported differences in children’s brain structures as a function of family income, but this is the first to relate that to variation in academic achievement,” an assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University, Kimberly Noble, explained.
Meanwhile, the achievement gap in the US between high- and low-income students has grown larger in recent years, even though gaps related to race and ethnicity have narrowed, according to Martin West, an associate professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and an one of the authors of the new study.
“The gap in student achievement, as measured by test scores between low-income and high-income students, is a pervasive and longstanding phenomenon in American education, and indeed in education systems around the world,” he said.
“There’s a lot of interest among educators and policymakers in trying to understand the sources of those achievement gaps, but even more interest in possible strategies to address them,” Professor West added.
In their follow-up study, the researchers are challenged to find out what types of educational programs might help to narrow the so-called “achievement gap,” and investigate whether some purposeful interventions influence brain anatomy just as well.
“Over the past decade we’ve been able to identify a growing number of educational interventions that have managed to have notable impacts on students’ academic achievement as measured by standardized tests,” West stated.
“What we don’t know anything about is the extent to which those interventions — whether it be attending a very high-performing charter school, or being assigned to a particularly effective teacher, or being exposed to a high-quality curricular program — improves test scores by altering some of the differences in brain structure that we’ve documented, or whether they had those effects by other means.”
“… the higher-income students have thicker brain cortex in areas associated with visual perception and knowledge accumulation.”
Thicker brain cortex? The word dense comes to mind.
Try doing a study on how much t.v. ‘programming’ is assimilated. I believe you’ll find that the spoiled rich brats have far more options to choose from that DON’T involve watching the idiot box, and the funds to afford them.
Correlation does not mean causation!
Hey, dot, long time, no see. 🙂
Well, I’m still here, mentally correcting everyone’s grammar and errors in logic, like the annoying old lady that I am! (I can usually resist my urge to post, though.)
Glad to see you’re still with us. Always enjoy your input, dot. 🙂
Ditto, .
“…..mentally correcting everyone’s grammar and errors in logic, like the annoying old lady that I am..”
What’s so annoying about doing that mentally? I put that stuff in writing every day.
yes — excellent point Dot. Who’s to say that the difference in brain structure isn’t a result of them not educating themselves, rather than blaming it on their environment, or other factors.
I’m going to guess that this latest “study” will begin a new campaign to convince Americans that the wetbacks need to be educated, so they can compete with the Americans that are unemployed, of course.
MIT and Harvard? May as well tell us the study was done by the Pentagon
i do not believe the notion that the richer kids have a superior intellect to be true..
i myself come from a low income house.. in fact we were so poor that my fist car was at the end of a chain and i had to build it myself out of parts of other cars..
the thing about not having the cash to just go out and buy something teaches you to make what you need yourself..
i learned to build what i need better than what i could buy.. it taught me to visualize and see what i needed to do…
a lot of these so called superior rich kids can’t even change a tire and get it correct.. they call the auto club..
i myself was doing 11th grade work in 4th and 5th grade while the richer kids were sucking on their pencils and eating paste.. i passed most of my classes in college without even buying a book which pissed the talking heads off..
but i have dabbled in chemistry, metallurgy, robotics, electrogravetics, electrostatics, magnetic weaponry (some fun stories there) engineering (both mechanical and electrical), Physics, electronic weaponry (some very scary stories there) carpentry, masonry, motor controls, residential wiring, computer repair, logic controls, HVAC/R, computer programming, mechanic work, plumbing, machinist work on both mills and lathes, gunsmith.. and that is just the ones off the top of my head..
right now im researching atmospheric electricity, crytal power cells, and telluric current receivers..
im 32yr old and i still do not know what i want to be when i grow up, lol…
but the so called richest people i went to school with can’t even do an eighth of that.. most peaked in high school and still act and talk the same way that they did in high school.. im like advance a little bit..
i figure the goober that did the study is one of them Sheldon Cooper types.. got some degrees and thinks he is above everyone.. thinks that those who are in lower income families and who get their hands dirty are backwards and stupid..
i have argued with these Phd ivory tower idiots, some are the dumbest most closed minded people on the planet..finished their education.. convinced of their own superiority and can’t even do half the things the people they call dumb can..