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Cash support for low-income families impacts infant brain activity - C C - Jan 25, 2022
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/940669
INTRO: A team of investigators from six universities across the U.S. reports that an intervention designed to reduce poverty had a direct impact on children’s brain development. After one year of monthly cash support, infants in low-income families were more likely to show brain activity patterns that have been associated with the development of thinking and learning.
The paper will be published online by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 24 at 3 p.m. ET. Collaborating institutions include: Teachers College, Columbia University; the University of Wisconsin, Madison; the University of California, Irvine; Duke University Sanford School of Public Policy; New York University; and the University of Maryland.
This study measured brain activity among a sample of 435 one-year-old children who were participating in a landmark randomized controlled trial known as “Baby’s First Years.” The larger trial, the first direct poverty reduction evaluation in the United States to focus on early childhood, recruited 1,000 mothers with low incomes from postpartum wards in a dozen hospitals in four U.S. metropolitan areas: New Orleans, New York City, Omaha, and Minneapolis/St. Paul.
Shortly after they gave birth, participating mothers were randomized to receive either a large monthly cash gift of $333/month or a nominal monthly cash gift of $20/month. The gifts were disbursed on debit cards, and the mothers, most of whom were Black or Latina, were free to spend the cash gifts in whatever way they chose, with no strings attached.
The new study reports the initial findings on infant brain activity after the first 12 months of the poverty reduction intervention. The mothers will continue to receive the cash gifts, funded by charitable foundations, until their children are four years and four months old.
“We have known for many years that growing up in poverty puts children at risk for lower school achievement, reduced earnings, and poorer health,” says senior author on the study Kimberly Noble, Professor of Neuroscience & Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. Poverty has also been associated with differences in children’s brain development. “However,” notes Noble, “until now, we haven’t been able to say whether poverty itself causes differences in child development, or whether growing up in poverty is simply associated with other factors that cause those differences.”
Because of the randomized controlled trial design, the authors were able to distinguish correlation from causation, concluding that giving money directly to mothers living in poverty can translate to changes in their infants’ brain activity... (MORE - details)
RE: Cash support for low-income families impacts infant brain activity - Syne - Jan 25, 2022
Or poor mothers with more money were more likely to spend it on drugs or alcohol, making their child's environment more unstable and stimulating. See, they didn't really preclude all correlations. They just neglected to see how the money was spent.