Growing Up Poor Changes Children’s Brains And May Even Shorten Their Lives

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/10/22/2816021/poverty-children-brains/

By Alan Pyke on October 22, 2013

Growing up in poverty changes a person’s brain in long-lasting ways that harm emotional processing and increase a child’s odds of mental health problems. The neurological impacts of childhood poverty may even include higher mortality rates, according to a new study by scientists at the University of Denver.

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While this study examined what growing up poor does to a person over decades, other research released over the summer zeroed in on the near-term consequences of poverty on adult brains. The stress of poverty has the same effect on a person’s cognitive ability as pulling an all-nighter every night, knocking as much as 13 percent off of a person’s IQ.

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