UC Berkeley: Poor Kids Brains are Different

December 4, 2008 by dave

All too often educators have excuses for why poor and minority students don't do well in school. The excuses I've heard have included everything from not having copies of Harry Potter books to a lack of involved parents. Unfortunately, this University of California Berkeley research suggests that poor children have differences in their brain.

University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown for the first time that the brains of low-income children function differently from the brains of high-income kids.

In a study recently accepted for publication by the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, scientists at UC Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and the School of Public Health report that normal 9- and 10-year-olds differing only in socioeconomic status have detectable differences in the response of their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is critical for problem solving and creativity.

Electroencephalography, or EEG, uses electrodes on the scalp and held in place by a cap to measure underlying brain activity. (Lee Michael Perry/UC Berkeley) Brain function was measured by means of an electroencephalograph (EEG) - basically, a cap fitted with electrodes to measure electrical activity in the brain - like that used to assess epilepsy, sleep disorders and brain tumors.

"Kids from lower socioeconomic levels show brain physiology patterns similar to someone who actually had damage in the frontal lobe as an adult," said Robert Knight, director of the institute and a UC Berkeley professor of psychology. "We found that kids are more likely to have a low response if they have low socioeconomic status, though not everyone who is poor has low frontal lobe response."

They don't suggest that these kids are doomed however.

"This is a wake-up call," Knight said. "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: fewer books, less reading, fewer games, fewer visits to museums."

Kishiyama, Knight and Boyce suspect that the brain differences can be eliminated by proper training. They are collaborating with UC Berkeley neuroscientists who use games to improve the prefrontal cortex function, and thus the reasoning ability, of school-age children.

"It's not a life sentence," Knight emphasized. "We think that with proper intervention and training, you could get improvement in both behavioral and physiological indices."

So, according to the article, all we need to do is have poor kids play more games? Or read more books or visit more museums? I think there might be more to it than that.

While I'm sure this research has some genuine scientific merit, I'm concerned that it will end up as yet another excuse for why school's can't get poor and minority children to grade-level. I'm not saying that the research isn't true. I'm not a neuroscientist, so I have no idea if the research is scientifically valid.

My point is one that I've made many times before. So what. What this research doesn't say is that these children can't learn. It only says that they found "damage". There are schools across the state that successful every day with getting poor and minority students to grade-level. These schools prove it can be done. It doesn't matter if the student's brains are different. It doesn't matter if the student's parents don't read to them. It doesn't matter if they don't have a copy of Harry Potter at home. None of these things matter. These things might make educating poor students more difficult, but they don't make it impossible.

It might take doing something different in the classroom or on the campus to help these kids be successful academically. It might require some educators to get outside their comfort zones. It might require extra effort from teachers, staff and administrators. Just getting more money to do the same old things isn't going to cut it.

It is worth it the effort. These poor and minority children are worth the extra effort. They're our future and I would much rather see them go into that future able to read, write, do math and ready for college or work. We shouldn't give up on these kids simply because it is hard to teach them. We can't give up on them. We can't let them give up on themselves.

Those successful schools can show us the way. They've found strategies that are working. They've figured out what it takes to do it within our current screwed up system of public education. While if you handed them some extra money, they'd know what to do with it, they're not complaining about limited resources. They're not looking outside for answers, but instead they're looking inside and making the most of what the have.

If you want to see some of these schools, look at the CBEE/JFTK-CA Honor Roll Star Schools. Here are schools that have the answers. Educators making excuses, need to stop and start looking for the solutions. The solutions are at these schools. Go find them!

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