Childhood living in poverty will affect intellectual development

Severe malnutrition and other poverty conditions that children suffer for a long time in their early years can lead to long-term consequences for their intellectual development as they grow up. according to the results of a new study.

Children who have experienced such circumstances for more than 6 months, after birth, have a lower IQ index at age 11, even though they have been out of poverty for 7 years or more. , according to the report of an English and American research team.

(Photo: mini-iq)

The research team based on surveys of 131 Romanian children lived in extremely poor circumstances in state-run child-rearing institutes, until the Ceausescu regime was overthrown in the late 1980s, and then they became adopted children of families in England and Canada.

These children are classified according to when they are adopted in the age of 6 months, or between 6 and 24 months, or 24 to 43 months - compared to 50 children born in the UK. Quoc and was adopted by families when they were 6 months or younger.

In previously reported studies of Romanian children - they often live in child-rearing institutes as babies - showing that children who were adopted as children before the age of six months did The intelligence is similar to that of children born in the UK, while those who are adopted as children at a later age have a lower IQ.

However, the researchers found that the majority of children who were adopted at the age of more than 6 months would be able to 'catch up' to intelligence development when they were 4 or 6 years old. But researchers want to investigate whether the catch can still be maintained when they are 11 years old or not.
They found that children with the lowest IQ at the age of 6 years (usually those who were adopted as the latest children) showed that they "caught up" with intellectual development at the age of 6 to 11 years.

'The hardest-hit children continue to make progress in the long run, able to catch up with those who are not as severely affected as they are,' said Dr. Celia M. Beckett, of King's College, in London, UK, told Reuters news agency.

However, they and other children who are adopted as children of later age continue to show significant intellectual development when they are 11 years old, Dr. Beckett and colleagues say in the report. in Child Development magazine.

They wrote: 'For children who are adopted as children, the window of opportunity for intellectual development seems to widen at the age of 6 to 11 compared to 6 years, but the developmental delay is long. shows that there are limits. '

However, the harmful effects from the deprivation situation are only evident for children who have lived in orphanages for 6 months or more. There are no 'measurable effects' where children live in orphanages for less than 6 months, the researchers noted.

One point worth mentioning is that children who become adopted when they are 6 months and older have a smart score of 15 points lower than children who become adopted sooner. Although IQ is almost the same for children who become adopted later, regardless of the time when they are over 6 months to 42 months.

According to Dr. Beckett, 'living more than 6 months in a very deprived environment is a factor influencing intellectual development in the future, but the level of influence does not increase when the situation lacks more than two years. '

She added that 'teachers need to be aware of the long-term consequences of deprivation at the early age of children, in response to their educational needs.'

(Photo: iqtestnow)