OVERVIEW
In 1998, more than 13 million children (19 percent of all children) under age eighteen lived in families with incomes below the official poverty threshold. Although children age eighteen and under represent 26 percent of the United States population, they comprise nearly 40 percent of the poverty population. Despite a steady decrease from 1993 (23%) to 1999 (17%) in the rate of children in poverty, the United States still ranks highest in childhood poverty among all industrialized nations.
In the United States, income poverty is defined by the poverty threshold, developed in 1959 and based on expected food expenditures (thrifty food basket) for families of varying sizes. Each year the threshold is adjusted for the Consumer
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Moreover, longitudinal designs allow for an assessment of how the timing (early vs. late) and duration (transient vs. persistent) of poverty may differentially affect children's outcomes. When possible, this discussion presents finding from studies that used standardized tests of school readiness, achievement, and cognitive ability, and controlled for key family and child characteristics, in its review of the impact of poverty on children's educational outcomes.
Early childhood. During the 1990s, the nation was inundated with reports on the importance of the early years on children's brain development and later cognitive achievement. While some of the reports may have overstated the issue and understated the importance of a child's later years on development, evidence suggests that the early years may be a critical period of development in which family poverty has particularly strong effects on young children. As seen in Table 1, poverty occurring early in a child's life (age two to four) is associated with large effects on indices of child school readiness and cognitive outcomes.
Judith Smith and colleagues (1997), using data from two national datasets, showed that family poverty was significantly associated with lower scores on several measures of child cognitive and school readiness outcomes for children age three to four years, even after controlling for the effect of mother's education,
Introduction In the United States, there is an achievement gap between middle and upper class students and low-income students. Children who are from middle to upper class families are outperforming students living in poverty on standardized tests. Although, all children are learning the same information, but the experiences they endure outside of school has an impact the learning process. Poverty has a direct correlation in the quality of education certain children receive, and then it impacts test scores.
In this time and age the United States contains a high number of students in the public schools who are under the poverty line. Poverty is defined as the state of being really poor financially. Poverty in the United States has become a complicated problem that causes a variety of diverse challenges for children and their families. Although the economy of the United States is showing great signs of improvement, poverty remains a serious issue. While examining poverty and children education in several articles all authors seem to agree with the fact that poverty does have an affect in the academic development of a child. However, there are several disagreements in other areas. The authors that this essay will be
Childhood poverty comes along with stress and safety. Children who grow up in low-income families have less interaction with their families which leads to less cognitive stimulation. They also don’t have access to healthy foods, which affect healthy brain development. According to Hanson JL, Hair N, Shen DG, Shi F, Gilmore JH, et al., infants, toddlers and preschoolers from low-income families develop lower gray matter compared with those from middle and high-income households (Hanson et al.,2013).
What is it like living in a home with low income? Poverty is the state of not having enough money to meet basic needs such as food, clothing, and shelter. What affects does it have on children? Children living in low income homes face more challenges than others. The have to endure the pain of not having family members at home when they need them. Children living in poverty have to cope with the stress of taking care of themselves as well as their siblings at times, while trying to maintain satisfactory grades in school. In this paper I will discuss the effect of poverty on a child’s social development, academic performance, and health conditions.
It has long been known that low socioeconomic status is linked to poorer performance in school, and recent research has linked poverty to smaller brain surface area. The current study bridges these converging lines of evidence by revealing that up to 20 percent of the achievement gap between high- and low-income children may be explained by differences in brain development.
The development of children can depend on many factors, one of the important ones being socioeconomic status (SES). SES can be defined as a multidimensional construct, including measures of social factors such as power, prestige and hierarchical social status, and economic resources (Hackman and Farah, 2009). Child development can be studied from multiple dimensions such as physical, mental, social, and emotional development among others. For the purposes of this study, I will be focusing on how socioeconomic status affects child cognitive development.
One major effect of poverty is that children are at a higher risk for academic failure. Readiness for school when entering kindergarten sets the bar for future success. Students behind their peers find it more difficult to close the readiness gap (Black
Question 2: Discuss the effects of poverty on children’s cognitive and social development and the extent to which effects might extend into adulthood
Poverty can be caused in the early stages of childhood, sometimes even as early as kindergarten. “Prekindergarten and kindergarten class sizes above 20 are generally associated with poorer outcomes for children. Even after controlling for factors such as family income that may correlate with large class size” (Pianta pg. 120).
Through the lens of an information-processing theorist, memory is one domain in which children continuously grow in their cognitive development. Kimberly Noble explores the way in which the socioeconomic status (SES) of the family, specifically focusing on educational attainment and income, affects this cognitive development in children ages two and younger (Noble et al., 2015). Several research studies have shown connections between low SES and lower academic achievement; one notable study by Judith Bowey shows academic differences in preschoolers. Bowey looked at 238 preschoolers from varying socioeconomic backgrounds and found that high SES preschoolers scored higher in IQ, vocabulary, grammar, and number problems (Bowey, 1995). Both Noble and Bowey are particularly focused on the early point in development in which these differences can be observed.
The impacts of poverty on children are wide-reaching and can prompt long-term life struggles, particularly when young people don’t receive a good education. Poverty and education are inseparably connected, on the grounds that people living in poverty may quit school, so they can work instead, which leaves them with a lack of literacy and numeracy skills, which then causes them to not be able to advance in their careers. Their children, thusly are brought up in a comparable circumstance years later, with little income and few options, but to leave school and work. For the students living in poverty that do choose to stay in school have to deal with the poor education offered near their home. Most high-poverty, high minority schools will receive significantly less state and local money than more wealthy schools, and students in such schools will probably be taught by teachers who are unpracticed or teaching outside their specialties. Studies have also been done about how physical and social-emotional factors of living in poverty can affect students’ cognitive performance in a detrimental way.
Economic circumstances has an influence on multiple areas that affect infant development. Income related difference in parenting appear early in the infants life; for instance, on average low income mothers are less affeffectionate, less responsive to infants’ distress signals, and they are more likely to have harsh parenting styles. Children from a low income have fewer stimulating experiences and learning materials than children from higher income households. This leads to apparent differences that during the first years and often last into adulthood. One of those differences are that the children from low income are more likely to have increased behavioral problems and lower cognitive scores. Furthermore, children from a high income family usually experience psychological stress because the parents pressure the child to overachieve. The financial situation can also affect if the infant is able to get the nutrition intake that is needed, and if the infant is unable to get the right nutrition that will lead to other areas of development being affected.Financial situations
Poverty affects approximately 15 million children in the United States (Jiang et al., 2015). Children living in poverty, struggle daily to survive. The effects of poverty on academic achievement have been a topic of conversation and research in urban
When every child has the chance to meet his or her full potential, families, communities, and the economic future of the United States is reinforced. Surprisingly, one in four children in the United States living in low-income households enters kindergarten not equipped to learn and, as a result, fall behind from the start. “Children 's academic and social competencies at kindergarten entry are important predictors of success throughout school; children who enter school not ready to learn struggle with academic difficulties and [can] manifest social and behavior problems in later school years” (Duncan et al., 2007; Ladd, 2006). “When a young child enters kindergarten ready for school, there is an 82 percent chance that child will
In 2000, the poverty rate for individuals was 12.2 percent and for families was 9.3 percent (American Psychological Association). In 2010, the poverty threshold, or poverty line, was 22,314 dollars for a family of four (American Psychological Association). U.S. census data reveal that from 2009 to 2010, the total number of children under age 18 living in poverty increased to 16.4 million from 15.5 million (American Psychological Association).