Giving low-income families cash can boost baby brain activity

Giving low-income families cash might protect infants from the damaging effects poverty has on brain development, new research suggests, as NBC reported.

Preliminary results from an ongoing clinical trial found that infants whose families received an extra $4,000 in annual income were more likely to show brain activity patterns generally associated with thinking and learning. These findings come just weeks after the child tax credit, which gave cash to low-income parents, expired after Democrats failed to unite behind a large social policy bill that would have extended it. Most Republicans oppose unconditional aid to families, which they describe as welfare.

“This is a big scientific finding,” said Martha J. Farah, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania, who conducted a review of the study for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as the New York Times cited. “It’s proof that just giving the families more money, even a modest amount of more money, leads to better brain development.”

Research has long shown that growing up in poverty has an impact on brain development, including lower rates of high school graduation among children who grew up poor. In the past decade, dozens of studies have shown differences in brain matter and brain activity stemming from living in poverty. This new study goes a step further, however, demonstrating the cause-and-effect link between poverty and brain development. 

“All of the past work has been correlational,” said Dr. Kimberly Noble, a professor of neuroscience and education at Teachers College, Columbia University, who co-authored the study, as NBC reported. “We could say based on past work that poverty is related to these differences, but we couldn’t say poverty is causing these differences. From a scientific perspective, the only way to answer that question is through a randomized clinical trial.”