Breaking the Cycle
Understanding the Chaotic Impact of Poverty on Childhood Development and Education
Unraveling the Complex Relationship between Poverty, Brain Development, and Educational Inequality
Living in the chaos of poverty is associated with substandard housing, moving frequently as a consequence of eviction, hunger, homelessness, inadequate childcare, unsafe neighborhoods, and under-resourced schools providing subpar education, therefore limiting opportunities from the start. Living in poverty is being in a constant state of deprivation. One lacks access to resources and many of the basic necessities needed to live a healthy and dignified life. It also means not being able to afford medical care or consistent access to basics such as electricity, shelter, and food. Those living in poverty experience worse health outcomes associated with high mortality rates, increased risk of mental health conditions, and substance abuse. It means hot summers and cold winters. It is difficult for those who live in poverty to gather the resources to escape it. People living in an environment of poverty do not create a functioning community where there are neighbors helping each other. Most live in isolation. This is the environment of poverty…chaotic.
Urie Bronfenbrenner was a prominent developmental psychologist who proposed a bioecological model of human development (The Ecology of Human Development,1979). His research demonstrated that from birth, humans (biological and social organisms) progressively develop within an increasingly more complex reciprocal environment composed of persons, objects, and symbols found in the immediate external environment. His research also demonstrated that for this reciprocal interactive development to be effective, the interaction must occur in a stable environment and on a fairly regular basis over an extended period of time. He proposed that chaos interferes with the development and sustainability of adaptive behavior. He contended that poverty is a significant factor impacting human development. The environment of the poor is usually hectic, unstructured, unpredictable, and at times out of the individual’s immediate control. Consequences are inconsistent and many times noncontingent. He advocated that “poverty is a risk factor in human development.” He concluded, “Chaotic living conditions might also interfere with the development of competency, the belief that one is an effective agent in coping with one’s surroundings.”
Evans and his colleagues at Cornell University worked with Bronfenbrenner and are continuing his work. They published The Role of Chaos in Poverty and Children's Socioemotional Adjustment (2005). They documented growing levels of chaos in the lives of children and families living in poverty. They noted, "Increasingly, children grow up in households lacking in structure and routine, inundated by background stimulation from noise and crowding, and forced to contend with the frenetic pace of modern life." They demonstrated that "chaos does not occur randomly in the population." They documented that poor children experience higher levels of chaos in their lives. They provided evidence that some of the adverse effects of poverty on the social and emotional adjustment of children growing up in the environment of the poor are mediated by exposure to chaotic living conditions resulting from living in unstructured and unpredictable environments.
Their research more recently demonstrated that “Unpredictable, nonroutine, inconsistent, and noncontingent physical and social surroundings can interfere with a sense of mastery and lead to helplessness in the developing person. Lack of routines and structure and largely intractable stimulation may also undermine the child’s ability to self-regulate and manage his or her own behavior and emotions.” Furthermore, violence is also typically associated with the environment of poverty.
Brain Development: Poverty and Early Life Adversity
The brain serves as the regulating center of the nervous system. It is the engine of behavior. Explaining how external stimuli are represented in the brain is one of the challenges of neuroscience. The early life experience of an infant facilitates the connectivity of the sensory-motor cortical networks that lay the foundation for how the brain represents the world. Neurons are nerve cells that transmit messages all over the body. Neurons are the structural and functional units of the nervous system. Their primary function is to send and receive signals from your brain. They are what allow you to do everything from breathing, communicating, eating, walking, thinking, and learning.
A cortical map refers specifically to a correspondence between responses in the anatomically-defined network of cortical neurons and some events external to the brain. These cortical maps and the receptive fields of cortical neurons are not fixed but are dynamically modified by our experience with the environment. Cortical maps provide important data as to how brain architecture and connectivity develop and maintain representations of the external environment. In part, they are shaped by the experiences in the environment in which we interact. It is essential to promote the practices of sensorial and motoric enriching stimulation early in the life of a child because these sensory/motor maps lay the foundation for cognitive development, learning, and storing and using knowledge of the world.
The neuronal connections in the brain change from experience. This is known as brain plasticity. A fundamental aspect of cortical function is the ability to adapt and reshape itself in an experience-dependent fashion. Cortical plasticity is the foundation for the biological basis of learning.
In the developing child, there are sensitive periods, known as windows of opportunity. The young brain demonstrates significant neuroplasticity and has an inherent dynamic biological capacity to quickly undergo maturation and structural/functional change in response to experience. It is in these sensitive periods that we need to initially focus our environmental and behavioral interventions in order to facilitate the initial biological foundation for a fair chance in life at the level of the maturing brain.
Language acquisition is probably the most fundamental human faculty. Based on the infant’s experience with the supporting environment, language processes are connected cortically with neuronal maps, receiving sensorial information about the world, as well as cortical networks supporting brain connectivity leading to memory and cognition. Language plays a significant role in thinking and cognition. The brain undergoes plasticity-based developmental changes, but for language to develop properly, it requires a social context that facilitates the appropriate environment and experience. Experience with language in the first year of life begins to shape the brain’s neural circuitry even before infants speak their first word. The richer the experience, the better. The child’s social development emerges as a result of interpersonal connections with their social environment. Language also plays a significant role in social and emotional development. Environments that support language development are crucial for brain development as well as social development.
It is a fact that enriched environments facilitate the development and function of the brain. In a crucial prospective study (Luby, 2012), maternal support in early childhood predicts larger hippocampal volumes in school-age children. Thus there is evidence in humans of the positive effect of early supportive and nurturing parenting on healthy hippocampal development. The hippocampus is a brain region key to memory, cognition, and stress modulation. Recent neuroimaging research has been able to discern specificity in the relation of childhood experience to later brain structure. This suggests that the home environment plays a significant role in brain development.
A growing body of research now documents how poverty changes the way children’s brains develop. The environment of poverty impacts the development of the child’s brain. Research has shown that brain structures associated with memory, planning, and decision-making show decreased myelination associated with reduced neuronal connections. As a consequence, poor children experience more developmental delays, decreased cognitive abilities, emotional problems, and lower academic achievement.
These are brief examples of research literature on early developmental experiences and brain development in children. We now have developmental-based learning science that can be applied to ensure that every child gets a chance. We need to continue to build an inclusive society and culture that makes sure that we do not leave the poor behind.
How Poverty During Childhood Impacts the Adult Brain
Growing up in a chaotic, inconsistent, and unpredictable environment increases the risk of developing both physical and mental health problems in life. Those who live in poverty have shorter life expectancies and experience higher death rates. They usually engage in a high frequency of risk-taking behavior in order to get their needs met, putting them at risk of injury or death. Statistics also show that children, particularly adolescents, living in poverty are at a higher risk of dying from suicide. Neurocognitive development is negatively affected by the environment of poverty. It is a fact that continuous stress, poor nutrition, and lack of enriched cognitive stimulation contribute to deficits in short-term memory impacting retention and learning. The poor’s future is diminished from the beginning!
Poor nutrition and lack of cognitive stimulation as well as living in an unpredictable environment are contributors to problems in memory impacting learning new skills. Poor children, by age nine, demonstrate greater activity in the amygdala and decreased activity in the prefrontal cortex. These differences are quite important since the amygdala in the brain modulates the fear response, while the prefrontal cortex is the planning and executive gateway for action, it is where we process the environment and plan as well as execute an appropriate plan of action.
Childhood poverty has far-reaching effects on health, well-being, cognitive development, educational attainment, behavioral health, and development of work skills. Many poor people suffer from inadequate nutrition, secured housing, and access to effective health care.
Becoming an adult in this environment of poverty has cumulative negative consequences. Growing up in an environment of poverty has an impact on the amount of white and gray matter found in the adult brain. Gray and white matter are quite important since gray matter (composed of neuronal cell bodies and unmyelinated axons) enables individuals to control movement, memory, and emotions. White matter (found in the deeper tissue of the brain containing axons and neurons) facilitates the exchange of information and communication between different areas of the brain - the foundation for executive functions (monitoring and selecting behavior that facilitates the attainment of a chosen goal). Adults raised in an environment of poverty usually have problems with processing complex information associated with reduced cognitive functioning. These deficits impact executive skills.
Adults who grew up in an environment of poverty usually develop an increased sense of being helpless associated with the inability to provide, protect, or care for themselves. They also tend to give up quicker when facing a challenging task.
It is time that we recognize that growing up in an environment of poverty has an impact not only on the developing child; but that child will grow up as an adult whose cognitive abilities will be reduced, diminishing their chances for a fair life.
Poverty’s Impact on Education
Education is regarded as the equalizer of opportunities and upward mobility. As noted above, the reality is that growing up in an environment of poverty impedes the poor child from catching up long before they enter the classroom. They do not grow up in an enriched environment usually associated with books, interactive games, and simulating early learning material. Quite often, it is a single mother raising the children. Adequate childcare is not available and the task of parenting suffers. There is a strong relationship between poverty and illiteracy.
Once a child raised in an environment of poverty gets to school, that child is already at a disadvantage. The teacher is most likely not adequately trained to work with children living in poverty. A teacher in a school that teaches the poor usually needs to become involved in every aspect of a child's life, both academic and personal. Teachers, quite often, are not fully aware of the extent to which poverty impacts academic achievement. The children arrive without the foundation it needed to succeed in school. They do not know how to study/learn and tend to have poor self-discipline. They may have attention problems as well as some behavior problems. Language and communication skills may not be fully developed. Their behavior might be challenging! Many teachers do not survive teaching in this environment. Poverty impacts the child’s readiness for school, both academically and socially.
Ways Poverty Impacts Education
Disadvantage due to family chaos.
Lack of poverty-specific curriculum and teaching strategies.
Children have reduced verbal and reasoning skills in addition to cognitive development.
Learned helplessness - living in an unpredictable and uncontrollable environment.
Negative school conditions - when a school is in need of repairs, lack books and other resources, and has a hard time retaining teachers, students are negatively impacted.
Not focusing on fostering the child to focus on learning about possibilities.
Final Thoughts
We, as a country, have spent much time, effort, and money to try to reduce the frequency of poverty in the United States. These programs have failed for many reasons. Poverty is a vicious cycle created and maintained by the interaction of the behavior of the poor with the context of the environment of poverty. In our last essay, we addressed the Brookings Working Group on Poverty and Opportunity consensus plan.
The focus is on the behavior that increases Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security.
Education and Eradicating Poverty are Related.
Any effort to wage a war against poverty needs to focus as a start on early childhood education.
Education is the key to reducing the cycle of poverty.
In our next essay, we will address and propose a behavior-based comprehensive approach to initiating an evolutionary and gradual war on poverty. Thank you for reading our Substack! Pass it on and see you soon.
Francisco I. Perez
Faris Kronfli
Henry S. Pennypacker
For those of you who are interested in delving deeper into these issues, we suggest H. S. Pennypacker & Francisco I. Perez - Engineering the Upswing; A Blueprint for Reframing Our Culture - 2022, Sloan Publishing. It can be bought at The Cambridge Center for Behavioral Studies bookstore (behavior.org) or Amazon. All proceeds benefit the Cambridge Center.