Living in poverty can coincide with many social issues such as childhood neglect, violence and malnutrition. Studies show that poverty may potentially affect the developing of the brain as well as the cognitive abilities of children. The first six years of life is very significant to a child as it is when the human brain grows. Poverty conditions through early childhood make children grow with negative attitudes towards life. Among the factors that are relevant to brain development are levels of nutrition, level of attention and emotional support.
High level of nutrition, attention and emotional support helps contribute to healthy brain growth. According to Bornstein and Bradley (2014), a high level of nutrition, attention, emotional support help children to maximize the productivity of their brain and prepare the mind for future learning capability. There are numerous other research studies which show how poverty affects the brain. According to a study done by the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin –Madison (2017, as cited by Hineline, 2017), brain scans of children who grow up in poverty show that their brains develop less gray matter in the frontal and parietal lobe. The study demonstrated that children in a lower socioeconomic status had significantly lower brain volumes than children from high socioeconomic status. Neurocognitive tests and brain activity on electroencephalograms done on children affected by poverty indicate that the brain of the children shows a significant decline in cognitive abilities related to memory, reading, and language (Ojiaku, 2015).
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Childhood is used as a springboard for promoting healthy aging. This is because cognitive development of an individual starts at the age of 6, which is very critical for human brain growth. For this reason, children at this age bracket ought to be handled with a lot of care as it will help them develop positive thinking about life and aging in general.
References
Bornstein, M. H., & Bradley, R. H. (Eds.). (2014). Socioeconomic status, parenting, and child development . Routledge.
Hineline, T (2017). Five ways poverty affects the developing brain. [Online]. Retrieved from: https://borgenproject.org/five-ways-poverty-affects-developing-brain/ . Accessed 24 th August 2019.
Ojaku, P. (2015). How does poverty affect the brain? [Online]. Retrieved from: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/mind-guest-blog/how-does-poverty-affect-the-brain/ . Accessed 24 th August 2019.
