Socio-economic Background Affects Brain Function

Hey all.

Here's an interesting article from BBC, talking about a study performed at Berkeley that tested the brain function of kids from both low and high socio-economic backgrounds. Turns out that kids from low SE families did not process information in their brains as well as those from higher SE backgrounds.


"This is a wake-up call - it's not just that these kids are poor and more likely to have health problems, but they might actually not be getting full brain development from the stressful and relatively impoverished environment associated with low socioeconomic status."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7762492.stm

Researchers think this lower performance may be because these children were not spoken to as much by adults as they developed.