A recent Berkeley study claims proof of that "the brains of low-income children function differently from the brains of high-income kids."

The study shows that 9 and 10 year old children "differing only in socioeconomic status have detectable differences in the response of their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is critical for problem solving and creativity."

"Kids from lower socioeconomic levels show brain physiology patterns similar to someone who actually had damage in the frontal lobe as an adult," says Robert Knight, a UC Berkeley professor of psychology. "We found that kids are more likely to have a low response if they have low socioeconomic status, though not everyone who is poor has low frontal lobe response."

Knight also says; "This is a wake-up call. It's not just that these kids are poor and more likely to have health problems, but they might actually not be getting full brain development from the stressful and relatively impoverished environment associated with low socioeconomic status: fewer books, less reading, fewer games, fewer visits to museums."

Cognitive psychologist Mark Kishiyama and W. Thomas Boyce, UC Berkeley professor emeritus of public health , agree with Knight that the effects "are not a life sentence."
A Berkeley news release alligns with the 1995 Hart-Risley word gap study, which shows children from poor families hear 30 million fewer words by the time they are four than do kids from middle-class families.

This need not be a luxury for select few. It may well be another clue in closing the debated income related performance gap in education.

Maybe we should recast our votes to continue the growth of our Douglas County Library program?

Berkeley Study http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/12/02_cortex.shtml
Supporting News release http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/12/02_cortex.shtml
1995 Hart-Risley word gap study http://www.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/spring2003/catastrophe.html