- Children who grow up poor shown to have smaller brain volume, By Michelle Castillo, October 28, 2013, CBS News: “Growing up poor may have an effect on brain size, a new study suggests. Researchers wrote in a study published in JAMA Pediatrics on Oct. 28 that children who grew up in impoverished environments had smaller white and cortical gray matter volumes in the brain, in addition to a smaller hippocampal and amygdala volume…”
- The Lasting Impacts of Poverty on the Brain, By Emily Badger, October 28, 2013, Atlantic Cities: “Poverty shapes people in some hard-wired ways that we’re only now beginning to understand. Back in August, we wrote about some provocative new research that found that poverty imposes a kind of tax on the brain. It sucks up so much mental bandwidth – capacity spent wrestling with financial trade-offs, scarce resources, the gap between bills and income – that the poor have fewer cognitive resources left over to succeed at parenting, education, or work. Experiencing poverty is like knocking 13 points off your IQ as you try to navigate everything else. That’s like living, perpetually, on a missed night of sleep. That finding offered a glimpse of what poverty does to a person during a moment in time. Picture a mother trying to accomplish a single task (making dinner) while preoccupied with another (paying the rent on time). But scientists also suspect that poverty’s disadvantages – and these moments – accumulate across time. Live in poverty for years, or even generations, and its effects grow more insidious. Live in poverty as a child, and it affects you as an adult, too…”
Month: October 2013
Drug Testing and Assistance Programs
Drug tests falter as way for states to deny public aid, By Steven Yaccino, October 25, 2013, New York Times: “With safety-net spending under review around the country, proposals to make welfare and unemployment checks contingent on drug testing have become a routine rallying cry in dozens of states. But the impact of drug-testing measures has been limited. Supporters say the tests are needed to protect welfare and unemployment compensation funds as the nation emerges from the recession. But their enactment has often been hampered by legal challenges and the expense of running the programs, which generally uncover relatively few drug users…”
School Performance – Wyoming
40 percent of Wyoming schools not meeting expectations, By Leah Todd, October 26, 2013, Casper Star-Tribune: “The Wyoming Department of Education released its pilot report on school performance Friday, announcing that about 54 percent of Wyoming schools were meeting or exceeding expectations in the 2012-13 school year. The report is a first for the department, which was directed by the Wyoming Legislature in 2011 to create its own system of school accountability. The new system is in trial mode this year, according to a WDE media release. The school ratings will not carry consequences for underperforming schools until the 2014-15 school year, when the system will be fully implemented…”