Korenman, Sanders, et al. Long term poverty and child development in the United States: Result from the NLSY. 1994.

Child’s who had been through poverty would be more likely to have different cognitive and socioemotional development from others. Many scientists conducted studies on various families, and the findings revealed that in many low income families their child could score a lower grade in the following experiment. The first test, HOME (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment-short Form), tested the emotional and cognitive stimulation in the child’s environment, in which observes the interaction of the childs and their family, and the amount of material or activities available to the child. The VMAB and VMC (McCarthy Scale of Children’s Ability: Verbal Memory Subscales), tested the short term memories which the child would repeat after what the interviewer said. The experiment above is only a certain amount of examples that the studies use. The studies put in a lot of effort and did the experiment to many children in families including the low income and the average to high income. And the result shows that most children in low income families would have a lower expectation than a child from high income.

      This essay, in my opinion, offers unique techniques to compare childrens from average and low-income households. Additionally, it excels at distinguishing between the two types of families. They used methods to calculate the gap between IQ and cognitive ability of poor children. I was quite alarmed to learn that a child’s exposure to poverty might significantly reduce the likelihood of having a high IQ and healthy cognitive development.

“Our estimates of the mediating effect of the HOME score on the cognitive disadvantages of

poor children are lower than estimates of the mediating effect of HOME scores on the IQs of poor children (Goldstein 1990).9 The difference between our estimates and those reported by Goldstein

may be due to differences in outcome measures used, or it may result from the fact that the studies she reviewed lacked adequate measures of long-term income. Where controls for long-term income are lacking, the HOME score would measure both aspects of the home environment and the long-term income/needs ratio of the child’s family.”