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Poverty Stunts IQ In the US But Not In Other Developed Countries (arstechnica.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the expensive-elmo-dolls-are-the-key-to-intelligence dept.

An anonymous reader writes: New research published in the journal Psychological Science (abstract) found that children who grow up in poverty within the United States tend to have lower IQs than peers from other socioeconomic brackets. Previous studies have shown a complex relationship between a child's genetics, his environment, and his IQ. Your genes can't pinpoint your IQ, but they can indicate a rough range of values within which your IQ is quite likely to fall. For kids in poverty, they seem to consistently end up on the low end of that window. Interestingly, this effect was not seen for any of the other countries hosting kids within the study, which included Australia, Germany, England, Sweden, and the Netherlands. The study authors speculate that "inequalities in educational and medical access in the U.S." may be the root of the differences, though another researcher is planning to study the effect of school environments as well.

4 of 519 comments (clear)

  1. Duh. by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Here in the USA lead abatement in rentals is a thin coat of paint. Elsewhere they require the landlord to remove it ALL from the home.

    And who lives in the shitty run down really old homes with lead paint in them? poor people.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
  2. Re:Schooling, perhaps? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    a good 1/2 of my friends are teachers
     
      every single one of them complains about how they are stopped from doing the right thing because of the unions
     
      bad teachers cant be fired, and good teachers are pushed to the "good schools"

  3. Re:Schooling, perhaps? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The TV is just always on while they're home and doing other things.

    I was listening to NPR, and the interviewee mentioned that her research showed that for 40% of American children, the TV was on, and visible, during all three meals.

    So, yes, Americans watch a lot of TV, but is there any evidence that watching TV lowers IQ? I would suspect that the causation is the other way around.

  4. Re:Schooling, perhaps? by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Family emphasis on scholastics outweigh anything else.

    Several studies, described in Freakonomics and elsewhere, found that this is not true. Parental attitudes make surprisingly little difference. Who the parents are, makes far more difference that what the parents do. Family income, and the IQ of the biological parents (but not adoptive parents) makes much more difference than reading to your kids, helping them with homework, etc.