It is well known that children who live in poverty have more trouble in school and more problems socially than other children. Now investigators funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Development (NICHD) find that while children who live in chronic poverty from birth through age 9 score lowest on tests of school readiness and social competence, poverty at any time during early childhood is detrimental.
The researchers from the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network report their findings in the July/August 2005 issue of the journal Child Development. They represent the universities of Arkansas (Little Rock), California (Irvine, Riverside and San Diego), London, Michigan, North Carolina (at Chapel Hill and Greensboro), Pittsburgh, Texas (Austin and Dallas), Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin (Madison), and Harvard University, the NICHD, the Research Triangle Institute, Temple University, and Wellesley College.
To investigate whether the length of time a child's family experiences poverty or the child's age when the family is poor is more important in affecting a child's educational and social competencies, the researchers looked at families in the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. The families studied were either poor throughout their child's early life (from birth to age 9), poor only when the child was under age 3, or only after the child was 4, or never.