Brain growth is particularly active in childhood and even more so during its development during pregnancy. It is therefore understandable that deficiency of essential elements necessary for its growth can be deleterious for normal development.
Poverty impinges not only on economic factors but has also a direct impact on social and psychological stimulation, which results in poor brain development.
This has been amply demonstrated and manifests itself in particular with increased problems at school in children from poor economic background.
Using sophisticated brain imaging techniques (MRI), recent studies by psychologist Seth Pollack and his colleagues (JAMA Pediatrics, July 2015) have demonstrated reduced development of specific areas of the brain (namely the temporal lobes, frontal lobes and hippocampus) that are particularly associated with cognitive development.
These researchers found that children who were one-and-a-half times below the poverty level had a reduction of up to 10 per cent in the volume of grey matter in the brain. Reduced function of these areas would be expected to reduce brain capacity and result in poor academic performance.
Moreover, such brain changes were found to persist even into adult life, in spite of the now well-established (and much-touted) finding of brain plasticity.
In the absence of essential environmental factors, not available in families with marked poverty, reduced brain development leads to lasting problems with learning and education including inability for sustained attention, planning and cognitive flexibility and overall reduction in human capital.
These authors conclude that “as much as 20 per cent of the gap in test scores could be explained by maturational lags in the frontal and temporal lobes”.
These studies are particularly significant in view of the ever increasing gap between rich and poor, resulting in a very unequal society, affecting many of the developed nations in the world.
It has been estimated that in Malta, 15% of the population are living within the poverty range
The above study recommends that households below this poverty level “should be targeted for additional resources aimed at remediating early childhood environments”.
Poverty and reduced academic achievement have been shown to be inextricably linked and inevitably result in reduced life chances. In a recent book, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis (2015), Robert Putnam has demonstrated how severe poverty has dramatic effects on childhood achievement at school and later on in life.
Such children are bound to obtain reduced grades at school, are prone to have increased disciplinary problems and have greatly reduced chances of pursuing a tertiary education. He concluded that “family background matters more than 8th grade test scores for college graduation”.
It is true that the situation in Malta is nowhere as bad as it is in the US with the frightening inequalities that have become the norm there. But if there is one aspect which characterises the modern western world is the ever-increasing separation of the rich from the poor, with the ‘haves’ moving further and further away from the ‘have-nots’.
The mushrooming of poverty-stricken ghettoes has produced the results described for some US schools which have become almost completely unmanageable and can hardly function as educational institutions.
We cannot afford to be complacent about the risks of having pockets of extreme poverty in our midst.
It has been estimated that in Malta, 15 per cent of the population are living within the poverty range. Even if we consider that only half of these are within the severe poverty level, this is still a significant figure.
Overseas experience shows that certain members of society are more likely to fall within the severe poverty trap. These include not only ethnic minority groups, the unemployed or those on poorly paid jobs, but also single parent families and those with disability or ill-health. In particular, the abuse of drugs and alcohol can wreak havoc with the family budget.
The studies mentioned emphasise the need to search for such situations and ensure that specific assistance is provided to ensure that they do not kickstart a vicious spiral leading to future increases in the number of those at risk.