In a highly disturbing finding, researchers at UC Berkeley are reporting that children 9-10 years old differing only "in socioeconomic status" show "detectable differences in the response of their prefrontal cortex" that, according to study author Mark Kishiyama, are "similar to the response of people who have had a portion of their frontal lobe destroyed by a stroke." A preliminary report of these findings can be found in a Science Daily article entitled: Poor Children's Brain Activity Resembles That Of Stroke Victims, EEG Shows.
The research has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience but has not yet appeared. Thus, we're left to speculate as to a number of critical details. Nonetheless, the idea that poverty is creating a lost generation of children, while hardly new, receives a disturbing new emphasis when tied to standard neurological measures, highlighting the case for more proactive government assistance.
Based on my cursory Google search, the manuscript is not available in preprint form, although a lively discussion is already underway on various sites (i.e. BoingBoing). As best I can tell, the study examined EEG activity in response to novel images while the children performed an unrelated task, consisting of detecting which item in a series of simple geometric objects was different from the others (i.e. which triangle was slightly skewed). The authors used a relatively simple cognitive task, one on which the Science Daily article implies all the children performed equally well, in order to assess the underlying electrophysiological activity evoked by novel images, such as a photo of a puppy. In essence, economically disadvantaged children exhibit a weaker novelty response, on average, than do children whose parents are better off financially.
Of course, if there is a devil here, it will be in the details, and those aren't yet available. What controls were performed to support the claim that the two groups differed only in their economic status? (For example, lack of adequate prenatal care in the children of lower economic status, or poor nutrition, could in principle be a major confounding variable). What was the size of the measured effect, compared to, say, the normal range of variance within each group? Most importantly, at least to my mind, were the authors able to differentiate between children of lower economic status based on their participation in early enrichment programs, such as Head Start?
It should be noted that the authors of the study are genuinely interested in child well fare and well being. No one should confuse this study with the infamous Bell Curve. If the differences the authors report are reproducible, there is no corresponding implication that poor children are intrinsically dumber that rich children, only that society is guilty of almost criminal neglect. All children deserve a chance to realize their individual and unique potential. Society must guarantee that all children receive sufficient intellectual stimulation to ensure that their innate cognitive capabilities are fully developed. The fact that the oppression of poverty may translate into neurological disadvantages implies that government assistance to impoverished children, to their health and early education, is perhaps more critical than even committed progressives have long supposed.