Relationship between Poverty and Cognitive Disabilities Among Kindergarten Students
Introduction
Poverty is described as the condition of being poor, resulting from the lack of a supporting means of income. The lack of sufficient amounts of money to provide for a person’s basic needs and those of the family helps categorize one according to some poverty in the various societies around the world. Poor children are those whose parents are not able to adequately provide for their basic needs, to help assure them a comfortable and healthy lifestyle. Cognitive disabilities on the other hand refer to the condition in which a person encounters challenges in handling different mental challenges that can be easily addressed by an average person. Cognitive disabilities can be classified into clinical and functional disabilities. Autism and brain injury are the most common types of clinical cognitive disabilities while problems with memory, comprehension and problem solving are classified as the notorious forms of functional cognitive disabilities.
Advanced malnutrition of fetus and young children are some of the recognized causes of cognitive disabilities among young children, which can thereby be easily associated with poverty in most communities as the lack of sufficient consumption income allocated to food is regarded a sign of poverty. The most common cognitive disabilities experienced among kindergarten students are the functional disabilities that revolve around the deficiency in a variety of comprehension skills in addition to the lapse in memory. Lacour and Tissington (2011) in their analysis of the relationship between poverty and academic performance observed that adverse academic performance among students was strongly linked to poverty. Majority of students from poor families recorded lower grades when averagely compared with those from the richer families, hence helping draw the link between poverty and cognitive disabilities.
Lange & Thompson (2006) argues that diagnosis of learning disabilities among children ought to be identified and addressed at a young age to help them favorably compete with their peers. The researcher argues that delayed intervention in addressing cognitive disabilities among the children could be disastrous as it is very difficult to correct the condition in adulthood. The effect of poverty in the skill development among young children is observed to seriously affect their performance in the development of academic skills such as the verbal skills (Kaya et al., 2016). The verbal skills are highly correlated with school performance levels, thus when negatively hampered by poverty the academic performance level gets affected. However, despite much focus lying on the impact of poverty in the development of cognitive disabilities among kindergarten students, analysis of demographic factors affecting the performance level of the children ought to be seriously factored. Through this research, the researcher shall aim to ascertain the extent to which poverty influences the development of cognitive disabilities among young children.
Statement of the problem
The presence of cognitive disabilities among young children in the United States and other parts of the world is an issue of major concern. Children with cognitive disabilities have natural incompetence in the development of their academic skills and proper diagnosis ought to be employed to help recognize students with various cognitive disabilities in learning institutions.There are myriads of factors that can be considered responsible for the development of cognitive disabilities though some researchers have already conducted studies with regard to the possibility of poverty affecting the level of performance among students. The evaluation of poverty as a major factor influencing the level of performance of the among children results in the development of cognitive disabilities such as the comprehension of various subjects of study, the lack of sufficient memory and the development of insufficient comprehension skills.
The recognition of the cognitive disabilities in the early growth stages such as in the kindergarten students allows for the establishment of various intervention measures through which the disabilities can easily be addressed. Children from poor households have so far indicated high levels of cognitive disabilities in terms of their school performance when compared to their rich counterparts, prompting the need to conduct an evaluation of the link between poverty and the prevalence of cognitive disabilities among the kindergarten students. Healthy nutrition among children through the provision of balanced diet foods is regarded an essential factor in the strong development of their brains, which directly translates to their school performance. Poor households in the United States for example experience the problem of accessing balanced diet foods resulting to instances of functional cognitive disabilities and lifestyle diseases like obesity.
To help understand the link between functional cognitive disabilities and poverty, the researcher will conduct a study among kindergarten students while still referring to the available literature resources. Other than poverty, influencing the quality of diet children from poor backgrounds go through, the researcher will analyze other impacts of poverty on poor children such as the stress that results from their inability to access basic school requirements that could lead to a decrease in the class-work concentration level. Thus, this study shall be guided by the desire to unravel the true link between poverty and cognitive disabilities among kindergarten students in the United States.
Purpose Statement
This mixed methods research design study aimed to evaluate any links between poverty and cognitive disabilities among young kindergarten students in the United States. Cognitive disabilities especially the functional perspective ones seriously affect the student academic performance level of students. These disabilities are evident through factors such as the inability of students to have strong memory, have ability to independently solve simple problems in addition to the development of weak comprehension abilities in math and other subjects of study. The findings of this study help enhance the already vast amount of research material available that develop links between income level and academic performance in the United States. However, of much importance shall be the study’s enhancement of the less exploited field that develops the link between the students’ income level and the development of cognitive disabilities among school-going children.
The study participants were students already tested and positively diagnosed to be suffering from cognitive disabilities. The examined students had their backgrounds examined to help draw a link between their cognitive disabilities and the income levels of the family backgrounds they come from. Additionally, the study categorized the kindergarten students on cultural basis to help evaluate which cultural origins were more affected by cognitive disabilities at the tender age of kindergarten schooling. The threshold academic performance level warranting a student to be regarded as suffering from cognitive disabilities was evaluated. Other additional factors of consideration likely to affect student performance were not given much focus as the study’s main purpose was the ascertainment of the impact of poverty on the establishment of cognitive disabilities among the kindergarten students. The criterion of classifying a student as coming from a poor background or not were based on the national and global accepted standards of poverty index ranking.
The National standards of poverty classification were preferred in this case as the study aimed at using accurate statistics in the process of conducting such a sensitive study, whose results are likely to be of major impact and consideration on the development of various policies and opinions. To help evaluate the poverty level of the students, the researcherinterviewed the students diagnosed with cognitive disabilities to help have them provide various data and statisticsconcerning g the children in addition to disclosing their income levels. High ethical standards were considered in the process of acquiring such sensitive data from the parents while the teachers were equally requested to give their opinions with regard to these study objectives. The teachers were requested to give their overall evaluations of the performance level of the students based on the income level of the students.
Several studies have already outlined the true link between income levels and student academic performance with results indicating an existing link between the two, prompting the researcher in this study to endeavor to ascertain the link between poverty and the prevalence of cognitive disabilities among the kindergarten-going students. Most teachers in the kindergarten schools never bother to understand why some students suffer from cognitive disabilities as it is not their primary role of service though the students recommended that teachers make effort to understand why some students suffer from these conditions. This study aimed at providing adequate information and appropriate recommendations on the best practices to be adopted to help enhance the care and treatment of students suffering from the cognitive disabilities.
Significance of study
Nieto (2010) notes that academic performance among school going children is an issue of concern for all educational stakeholders, hence the need for students to put much effort in their studies. Good academic performance is praised and revered while poor performance is scorned. Functional cognitive disabilities play a lead role in hampering excellent student performance as the students’ mental abilities to compete favorably get weaker than those of average students once diagnosed with the cognitive disabilities. Poverty has been identified as a major factor in poor student performance by earlier researchers and as a result,, the United States No Child Left Behind Act of (2001) played a crucial role in ensuring children from low income homes access quality education.
It therefore implies that despite students originating from poor backgrounds, the state helps provide education as a basic need and the other auxiliary impacts of poverty such as the inability to access quality-balanced foods influence the children negatively. Quality diets immensely contribute the brain development of children, resulting in strong brains with the ability to compete on various academic and social grounds. To help understand the link between poverty and education you equally unravel the link between poverty and cognitive disabilities as they result in poor academic performance. Cognitive disabilities can emerge due to the stress that children may be going through such as the lack of sufficient access to basic needs, which can affect their class-work concentration leading to memory lapse.
This study was largely significant as it helped provide essential evidence-based prove of the link between poverty and the existing cognitive disabilities among kindergarten students. The study used participants who are already diagnosed with various cognitive disabilities while also seeking essential income level information from the students’ parents. The study never focused on any other cognitive disability contributing factors as the main area of concern was the link between the income level of the children and their poverty levels. Additionally, the study used reliable study and data analysis methods to help come up with sound statistics at the conclusion of the study. All the students at the selected study area suffering from cognitive disabilities were evaluated and study was very inclusive as the participant students originated from different cultures.
The study results were very crucial to the development of the already scanty information and literature available with regard to the link between poverty and cognitive disabilities among kindergarten students. The available literature majors more on the link between poverty and student academic performance, hence, the important need for the research information and findings from this study. The educational policy makers also anticipate the findings of this research study to help develop more enabling and accommodating policies with regard to the process of handling and treating of students suffering from cognitive disabilities. The study findings will help the policy makers understand the plight of cognitively disabled children in addition to providing them with access to essential recommendation on what can be done to reduce, manage and control the cognitive disabilities among young children school-going children. The findings of this research study will additionally be very crucial to other researchers as it shall provide an important literature base of reference in the process of conducting other related future studies.
Research Questions
This study aimed at answering the following questions with regard to the relationship between poverty and cognitive disabilities among kindergarten students in the United States. There is already an assumption that poverty correlates to the development of functional cognitive disabilities among young kindergarten going children.
- How many kindergarten students in the selected school suffer from cognitive disabilities?
- How many of the cognitive students come from poor family backgrounds?
- How many kindergarten students come from rich backgrounds?
- What is the overall performance of children from poor backgrounds when compared to that of children from well-off backgrounds?
- Are there any evident relationship between the students’ income status and their level of performance academic performance?
- Is there any evident relationship between the student income level and the development of cognitive disabilities among the kindergarten students under consideration?
CHAPTER II
LITERATURE REVIEW
The poverty problem is an issue of special concern in the United States as statistics portray an ever rising poverty trend, resulting in a creation of a specific culture and a new way of life (Lacour & Tissington, 2011).The researchers note that individuals living in poverty suffer from the lack of different resources such as physical resources and financial resources. The impact of poverty is not only felt at the family level but rather across all divides with a lasting impact on learners who lack basic learning equipment, hence, hampering their academic success. Students from low-socioeconomic status families encounter difficulties especially at the young age as they lack basic learning equipment that aid their academic development in a variety of ways, resulting in a positive correlation between poverty and poor school performance. As observed by Lacour and Tissington(2011) the positive relationship between poverty and poor academic performance has resulted in the development of various strategies to help counter the condition and save the children from suffering from functional cognitive disabilities.
Lange and Thompson (2006) postulate that the recognition of learning disabilities at a tender age is a great milestone in developing mechanisms and strategies to help them improve. Children with learning disabilities are recognized based on their inability to comprehend simple statements, exhibit problem solving skills and overly their poor academic performance when compared to their peers. Lange and Thompson (2006) continue to propose that delayed interventions among children diagnosed with learning disabilities can be highly ineffective as the academic skill acquisition process starts at a tender age which provides a special pointer top the anticipated future progress. The intervention to help children at the risk of cognitive disabilities is plausible once timely undertaken as it helps them recover normalcy when effective intervention measures are embraced.
According to Rescorla (2002)there are various causes of cognitive disabilities among children such as biological factors, psychological factors and social factors. This implies that poverty is not the sole cause of cognitive disabilities as several other factors can cause the condition among the children. Due to the wide impact of poverty among the children and even the adults, it becomes a leading cause of functional cognitive disabilities as it potentially results in both psychological and social factors. Lange and Thompson (2006) notes that the development of prevention mechanisms greatly helps mitigate the impact of cognitive disabilities among the affected young children, who happen to be very many I the United States.
The 2001 legislation demanding all children in the United States attend school was a landmark Act that has enabled millions of children in the US access education. Joseph and Konrad (2008) argue that through the legislation, all children including those suffering from conditions such as cognitive disabilities and poverty have been enabled to access basic education. It is a crime for a child to miss attending school as the law stipulates that education is a basic need and all children deserve it in the US, providing a great platform for teachers and other concerned stakeholders to look for ways to ensure that children with cognitive disabilities attend school. Joseph and Konrad (2008) suggest that the process of learning both oral communication and written skills never ends in the classrooms but rather is a way of life in the outside world, hence, the need for all children to go through the learning process to help reduce the illiteracy levels in the US.
As a fact, there are several children diagnosed with learning disabilities in the modern world but information with regard to how best to handle and manage their dynamic needs remain scanty. The children suffering from cognitive disabilities just like other normal students dearly require the basic writing and speaking skills but the available literature is insufficient in providing appropriate guidance to the teachers handling such children(Joseph and Konrad, 2008). The rate of acquiring communication skills among the disabled children is slow and the strategies of teaching average normal students do not work in their favor.
Most instructors in learning institutions use learning strategies best suited to the learning process of normal students and as a result, the disabled students stay disadvantaged resulting in inefficiency in their process of grasping basic writing and communication skills. The cognitively disabled students may actually be very poor in the standard writing formats but efficient in other writing types, hence prompting the need to have them explore different writing and communication techniques in their academic learning process.
Ford (2013) further asserts that the learning environment of the students with learning disabilities has been a subject of much debate with some researchers proposing that such students’ learning interests are best served in all-inclusive classrooms with others holding a contrary opinion. The all-inclusive classrooms refer to the learning environment where the learners with cognitive disabilities mix with normal students and get taught together (Ford, 2013). In all-inclusive classrooms, the teachers embraced various accommodating teaching methods to help address the learning needs of the disabled students.
Ford (2013) argues that the most common all-inclusive teaching methods embraced by teachers include co-teaching and differentiated instruction methods. In the co-teaching method, the general teachers teach all the students in the classroom while the special education teachers repeat what has already been taught in a manner designed to boost the understanding level of those who missed various points during the general teacher’s session. The co-teaching process is very beneficial to both the normal students and the disabled learners as it helps them interact freely while helping the normal students grasp what they may have missed in the process of targeting the enhancement of the comprehension level of the disabled learners.
Ford (2013) observes that through the differentiated learning process, teachers develop learning techniques best suited to the individual needs of the learners such that the disabled students receive learning materials best suited to their levels if need whereas the diverse students also get accorded with materials matching their level. Through the differentiated teaching methodology, the teachers are obliged to use very flexible teaching methods, guided by the students’ needs.
This method can strongly enhance the welfare of the cognitively disabled learners as they flexibly and conveniently learn while in the company of the diverse ones from whom they can ape various behaviors and characteristics suitable for their development. To help ensure effective teaching through the inclusive criterion, the teachers need to expertly employ their teaching strategies to help avoid any stigmatization incidents on the side of the disabled students as others may laugh at their simple task allocations (Ford, 2013). The inclusive learning process can be a great intervention method of helping address the plight and condition of the cognitively disabled students.
According to Kaya, et al., (2016), poverty is considered a prime factor in the development of various cognitive disabilities that require special interventions before the children mature. When the learning disabilities are countered ion processes such as the ones observed above, the probability of recovery is usually very high. According to Kaya et al. (2016), poverty largely impairs the development rate of children’s verbal skills, plunging them into learning disabilities when not managed in time. The researchers further observe that the academic achievement gap in the United States has been widely influenced by the income state of the families the children originate from with the poor trailing those from the well-off families. The most noticeable influence of poverty as noted by Kaya et al. (2016) is the development of verbal learning skills among students in the United States.
Burnley and Beike (2008) argue that in the analysis of poverty, several variables come into place such as the financial position of a family, level of parental education and the type of income generating activities they engage in. The low academic performance state of the students from low-income backgrounds has been evidenced by various meta-analysis studies of different researchers who concurrently have noted that students from middle and high-income backgrounds are better academic performers when compared with their poor household counterparts. Kaya, et al. (2016) note that previous researchers have already attributed the disparity of student performance to income levels on the difference in the home environments of the students. The elementary students require a very enabling home environment to help them grow healthy and acquire various basic skills necessary for their normal growth. The children require caring parental care, healthy balanced diet foods and play spaces. The social environment has to generally boost their growth and development and whenever that is not the case, the students’ mental development rate slackens resulting in conditions of functional cognitive disabilities that impair their academic performance.
The student achievement gap can additionally be much influenced by the parents’ level of education. Low-income households have limited educational access, resulting in the lack of books at home while there can be plenty of books available in the middle and high-income homes. As a result, the students from the more advantaged backgrounds access books at an early age as the parents expose them to books even before they join school, helping them develop a strong bond with the books(Kaya et al., 2016). The illiteracy level of the parents resulting from their inability to access proper education trickles down to their children, who lack essential guidance in their home learning process, leading to a noticeable academic achievement gap between the rich and the poor.
Kaya et al. (2016) also argues that the family income level dictates the type of schools students join. Good teachers are obviously attracted to well-paying schools that belong to the rich and the middle-class. As a result, the children of the high-income earners acquire more holistic education when compared to their low-income counter-parts, which helps enhance their academic competence levels when compared to those from the poor households. In this case, the schools of the poor fail to match the standards of the rich in terms of facilities and teaching staffs, resulting in poor academic performance among the poor, conditions that may eventually degenerate to cognitive disabilities. The poverty level of various families thus directly impacts their children’s level of academic development, and requiresefficient policy enhancements to help mitigate the developing cognitive disabilities.
It therefore implies that the level of care provided to children at the tender age is an important pointer to their future health, social and academic success (Anderson et al., 2003). Students attending kindergarten classes are still very young and as a result require effective care and programs to help guide their growth and development, especially in their academic life. Anderson et al. (2003) recommends that the knowledge skill acquisition process among children is a very delicate and critical process that requires special care from all concerned stakeholders such as the parents and teachers. The researchers note that a child’s social interaction environment plays a crucial role in shaping their abilities to compete with their peers on a variety of platforms. The children go through various risk factors with the potential of destroying their mental development process and to help mitigate the risks, it is important that various effective policies get adopted for the sake of the reduction of resulting impairments such as the learning disabilities.
According to Anderson et al. (2003), an economically impoverished social environment is an automatic social risk factor that hampers the mental development of young elementary students. The researchers note that the social environment is a very powerful tool that influences the nature of growth and brain development of children and once inappropriate, then the children face the risk of developing various learning disabilities. The socio-economic impact on child development is observed to be more vested on the child’s cognitive and social development as noted by Anderson et al. (2003), who further notes that the child poverty level in the United States is higher than those of other developed countries with statistics placing it at 16%.
The poverty level analysis is based on the set income threshold and Anderson et al. (2003) proposes that intervention mechanisms are highly necessary to help mitigate the adverse effects of the socio-economic risk factor among the children. The establishment of effective early childhood development programs is touted as an essential mechanism to help enhance the cognitive and social functioning of children such that they develop normally through the reduction of the impacts of poverty. The mitigation of the socio-economic risk factor helps enhance the preparedness level to learn among the children from poor households resulting in the reduction of the resulting learning disabilities.
Anderson et al. (2003) note that the relationship between poverty and impaired early and learning processes are much established and a result recommends that various intervention mechanisms be embraced to help contain the situation. The impact of poverty among the young school-going children is very advanced as it largely limits their academic learning process resulting in the development of learning disabilities. Anderson et al. (2003) argues that to help address the impact of poverty on innocent young children, it is important that the concerned stakeholders take up an organized multi-disciplinary approach to help contain the situation. The researchers further argue that health equity should be made a priority and special attention be developed towards the care for children in poverty. Since poverty affects the children’s foundation in terms of both health and academics, it is important that the governments develop enabling programs to help boost the children from poor households.
The foundation for children’s learning is strongly anchored in their parental relationship, with efficient care enhancing the children’s skills development (NCPFCE, 2013). The skills the children develop at the tender ages help design their future progress and success especially in the academic and behavioral frontier, hence the need for quality parent-child relationships. Rogoff (2003) notes the skills the children learn through their parental interactions are crucial to their later development, as they bolster their readiness for various life challenges that lie ahead. Through the relationships developed between the children and their parents, Rogoff (2003) argues that the children enhance their social skills and find it easy to interact with their peers. Additionally, the problem solving skills of children are advanced through supportive parental interactions that equally help modify their ability to adapt to various environmental conditions.
NCPFCE (2013) observes that the intellectual development of children is strongly influenced by the nature of interactions between the young children and their parents. The interactions help develop the love for learning among the children as the family members help enhance the children’s mood to learn through acts such as reading various stories and materials loud to the children. The academic interaction with children before they start schooling through various literacy programs such as story-telling are touted as great milestones in the brain development of the children and as a result, helps increase the odds of their future academic success. NCPFCE (2013) documents poverty as a leading cause of learning disabilities among children as parents with low incomes access insufficient up-keep resources in addition to inadequate education levels.
As argued by Duncan and Brooks-Gunn (2000) poverty brings about stress in households, as families have to bear with burdens of unemployment and low-education access. Such conditions pose serious negative effects on the children as the hamper their mental growth and development due to the inability of parents to provide enabling social environments to their children. Through poverty, Duncan and Brooks-Gunn (2000) postulate that children go through negative mental development as their parents lack the social motivation to guide healthy interactions with their children, resulting in the encroachment of cognitive disabilities among the children. To help enhance the health and brain development level of young children, NCPFCE (2013) recommend that parents from low-income backgrounds ought to be exposed to various social support therapies to help them embrace better child handling methods to learn normally despite the myriads of poverty related challenges they encounter.
Pettigrew (2009) recognizes poverty as a condition that has for several decades widened the social gap due to its impact on upcoming generations from tender ages. The researcher observes that children are the main victims bearing the brunt of poverty as hampers their academic competence resulting in lack of decent employment in the later life stages. According to Pettigrew (2009), the US legislation requiring all students to attend school was a great milestone in the process of caring for the poor who have serious problems in raising children’s school fees. The researcher observes that poverty has balkanized the society on social lines in addition to encroaching the public education system through the emergence of the achievement gap.
The poor children lack enabling social environments and as a result undergo derailed brain developments leading to low academic performance. Hence, the need for the development of efficient policies to help close the achievement gap with the public education system in the United States. Children are purely dependent human beings who have to be cared and provided for by senior caregivers such as parents and guardian s for them to survive to adulthood. Children have no ability to move out, work on their own, and as a result, need to be prepared for a future working life through processes such as school education acquisition.
It therefore implies that the children have to bear with the socio-economic conditions of the families they are born in (Pettigrew, 2009). Children poverty is thus assumed to be a complete manifestation of the economic status of the parents and no power is in their capacity to change the situation. As a result, most children face serious life challenges in their early development due to the tough socio-economic conditions they have to encounter to survive through. When the poverty conditions are extremely established in families due to a wide variety of reasons, children lack enabling socio-economic environments leading to slow cognitive development especially in their academic performance. The result is usually poor performance and widening of the achievement gap as the children from average and well-off backgrounds utilize the enabling social environments to perform well in their academics.
Lee and Burkham (2002) argue that in the process of understanding child poverty and its influence in the cognitive and general development of children demands that the reasons for the caregivers living in poverty be exposed. According to the researchers, the main reasons for parents and caregivers living in poverty in the United States are mainly tied to their race, structures of their families and the location of their residence. Low social-economic conditions among caregivers are strongly attributed to the wide achievement gap in developed countries like the US andLeach & Williams (2007) propose that ethnicity and race do not surpass the impact of peoples’ social-economic state in influencing the performance level of children. Thomas & Stockton (2003), who argued that most of the minority communities in the US are the ones affected most by the plight of poverty, recognize the link between ethnicity and poverty in the US as immense.
Thomas & Stockton (2003) observe that most of the minority communities in the US are disadvantaged in various ways and as a result lack the capacity to develop their social-economic status, thus leading to poverty. Their voice of representation is weak and so is their bargaining power. The researchers argue that because poverty is cyclically attached to minority communities, the repercussions are more established in the children who lack an enabling social environment to develop and grow their cognitive skills. When the children lack some soothing environment for their development, they lack the competence and skills to match the performance of their peers from well-off backgrounds resulting in the widening of the achievement gap.
Berliner (2006) argues that the location of the residencies of children and caregivers play a major role in shaping the overall development of the children. The researcher notes that stigma on children coming from shanty residencies in schools can affect their personality and consequently their academic performance as such children may lose their self-esteem when associating with their peers from superior estates of residency. The companies and peers children encounter in shanty estates are also a big worry to parents as children are most likely to meet with people with lose moral who may have lost much hope in life and who could lure them to indecent acts like the use of drugs(Berliner, 2006).
As noted by Duncan & Brooks-Gunn (2000), poverty in shanty estates of residency has a biting influence in the level of educational performance of school going children at various levels of schooling. Poor parents are noted to lack the ability and voice to guide the academic path of their children and as a result have few options when it comes to the selection of the types of schools their children need to attend. Pettigrew (2009) observes that children from poor backgrounds attend some specific sets of schools and their parents cannot afford to transfer them to the schools of their choice.
The teachers available in schools for the poor especially in shanty estates have low teaching experience and face low remunerations when compared from those in standard estate schools. Due to the unattractive working conditions in such schools, most teachers lack the passion to teach in such schools and as a result, the children end-up acquiring unsatisfactory academic performance. Duncan & Brooks-Gunn (2000) additionally argues that the funding in most states is based on the property taxes and as a result, schools in poor estates automatically receive lower funding when compared with their counterparts in wealthy estates.
It thus means that children from low socio-economic background most definitely face lower quality academic services, leading to slackened cognitive development. The lack of sufficient experience among most teachers teaching students from poor backgrounds means that the students experience limited opportunities for academic development. The social environment created by the conditions of study for the poor children are highly disastrous to the academic growth and development of the poor children. Poverty denies them the chance to attend good schools with experienced teachers like is the case with children from well-off backgrounds, leading to the widening of the achievement gap in the United States and in other developed countries. To help close the achievement gap and provide equal academic opportunities to all students in the United States, the researchers note that the US government enacted a legislation requiring all children to attend school. Public schools received government funding and provided education to all with the aim of reducing poverty through education.
Demographics
This research study is based in an elementary school in the impoverished Southwest region of Georgia State. In this region, majority of the residents live in abject poverty, a state that directly translates into the welfare of the children who are forced to live in squalor condition due to the income level of their parents. In most parts of Georgia, the residents have low education levels, which majorly contribute to the high poverty levels as lack of education mainly attracts low-paying jobs. The residents in the study area mainly depend on casual factory jobs and farming, which pay salaries that barely meet the basic family demands, hence forcing most of the children to go to school hungry, a common phenomenon among the poor households in many US states.
To help enhance the school-going rate in the region, the federal and state governments in the region provide various subsidies to the poor households in addition to providing poor meals for the elementary students in the region. Poor children in the school of focus in this study depend of government meals in schools for survival and this impacts their concentration, growth and school performance compared to those from average and high-income backgrounds. The general observation in this study is that, most of the parents in the study area fail to turn up for work because they receive government subsidies to help cushion them from the serious impact of abject poverty. Such conduct serves to deteriorate the situation, as the households may not bailout themselves any sooner with such work attitudes.
In this study, 10 students from the selected elementary school are the subject of consideration. The students are all from low income families and face various survival challenges; mainly lack of an enabling social environment and other basic needs such as food. These students will form the research participants in this study and the consent of their parents will be sought, who will also provide additional crucial information with regard to their income status the social environment accorded to the children in their households. The teachers at the school of study will additionally form the participant group, as they are the custodians of the students’ academic progress, hence shall provide a clear picture of the student performance the kindergarten stage and even at later stages from the observations from previous experiences. Data from the teachers especially with regard to their levels of training, experience and level of job satisfaction shall be voluntarily provided by the teachers to help comprehensively document the findings of this study with respect to the influence of poverty on the development of the cognitive abilities of kindergarten students in this selected school of study.
Thus, the teachers, kindergarten students and the parents shall all be directly involved in a voluntary manner. They will be crucial sources of primary data in this study and their voluntary participation shall be invaluable. Secondary data with regard to the culture and condition of the residents of this southwest Georgia region shall be provided by the State of Georgia – Governor’s Office of Student Achievement through the website http://public.doek12.ga.us. The information with regard to the cultural diversity in the area in addition to teacher information with regard to their experiences and qualification levels shall be accessed in the Think-gate metro Atlanta school system. The regional-cultural diversity information is an important part of this study as it helps understand which cultural groups are most affected by the poverty syndrome in this region.
The class participants involved in this study in terms of gender is: six male students and four females. Culturally, of the student study participants four (4) are African-American, one (1) is Hispanic and five (5) are Caucasian. The overall background information with regard to the cultural origins of the students enrolled in this title 1 school presents a wider picture of the cultural diversities of the people caught up in the poverty cycle in this region of the Georgia state. The information available at the state governor’s office with regard to the cultural diversity of the regional residents in addition to their income levels is important in providing essential policy formulation information. The statistics available with regard to this study region will help enhance the understanding of its widespread dynamics, making it easier for the researcher to interact with all the study participants.
Through the purposive selection of the ten kindergarten student participants, the research shall overly target to examine the link between poverty and cognitive disability development among young school going children in the early schooling stages. The study sample shall thus be representative of the overall situation in Georgia and other states in the United States with impoverished children attending Title 1 schools. This study targets to influence greatly the lives and welfare of the students from low-income backgrounds who have to bear with the lack of food and other basic needs at their homes. As a result, such students attend Title 1 schools that are designated for the poor, as they help them access free meals such as lunch and breakfast. These children from impoverished backgrounds lack enabling social environments due to the high poverty level affecting their parents who additionally posses low education levels making it difficult for them to guide the academic progress of the young students.
The study will ascertain the academic level and progress of these students from low-income backgrounds in addition to examining the link between poverty and low academic achievement. Studies from various researchers as portrayed in the literature review argue that students from title 1 schools perform poorer when compared with those from average and high-cost schools. The study thus targets to greatly influence the performance of these students through the identification of the main causes of the low performances in addition to the proposition of the most suitable remedies to this condition. It therefore means that this research shall be fully anchored on the situation of children from impoverished backgrounds and shall strongly target to help enhance their academic performance and recovery from the cognitive disabilities they may have developed through a variety of effective methods. Once the findings and recommendations of this study have been adopted and implemented, the achievement gap is bound drastically reduce as the main contributor is considered to be the low-incomes majority of the households earn that gradually lead to the development of functional cognitive disabilities among young school going children.
Statistics from baseline data with regard to the poverty situation in Georgia indicate the presence of high poverty levels within the county with children innocently withstanding the worst of the circumstances. According to the American Community Survey (2014), the poverty level in the state of Georgia stood at 18.3%. This is a huge figure in a county with a population of more than ten thousand people. From this statistic, poverty is illustrated as a major challenge to the people of this county and thus the need to ascertain the cause of such high poverty index. The high population in poverty in this county is characterized is characterized by the low-education levels of most of the residents who work as factory casuals and in farms.
The unemployment rate in Georgia as observed noted in (PIT, 2014) stood at 6.3% at a time when the national rate was 5.5%. This implies that the unemployment rate in Georgia County was higher than the national level, adding to the justification for high poverty levels an unemployed population cannot easily meet its basic daily needs. Unemployment is a problem that directly affects a region’s economy, hence the need for the government to effectively adopt appropriate policies to help mitigate the condition. Most of the Georgia counties as observed by the US census on small area income estimates of the year 2011 posted high poverty levels with the Grady County posting a poverty level of 28.4% in the total population and 37.6% among children under the age of 18 years. Grady County in Georgia being the county of location of the research site thus already exhibits a picture of a highly impoverished region that requires sufficient intervention to help bring the situation under control.
The Children in the Georgia Counties seem to be largely affected by the poverty epidemic with those in Grady County under the age of 18 years recording a very high poverty index of 37.6% (US Census, 2011). In the Grady County District Schools poverty index analysis, it is indicated that there are 1,579 children between the ages of 5-17 years of which 34.1% live in poverty according to the US Census statistics of the year 2011. From this statistics, it is evident that several children in the selected study area face tough poverty conditions due to the low-income state of their parents. The statistics justify the selection of the southwest Georgia region as a suitable research site on the impact of poverty on the cognitive development of young kindergarten students. The poverty trend in this region seems to be ever increasing and thus the need for an evaluation of its impact in widening the achievement gap in Georgia. The study expects great success in this area due to the massive poverty establishment in the region.
Strategy Implementation
| Research question: What is the link between poverty and cognitive disabilities among kindergarten students in Georgia County?
|
The research question arouses several thoughts with regard to the link between poverty and cognitive disabilities not only in Georgia County but across the US and other developed economies. The main ideas triggered by the research question are: are the policies in place factoring the needs of needy students in the county? Are the teaching techniques used by the teaching staffs in the county friendly to the academic needs of cognitively disabled learners? Why is poverty so established in some neighborhoods despite the US being a first-world country? What is the best way to bridge the achievement gap identified by other researchers in the US facilitated by poverty? The researcher will thus have to research more on this ideas and thoughts to help develop accurate answers to the research question.
Solution Strategies for Implementation
Development of Enabling Socio-Economic Policies
In the quest to reduce the impact of poverty in developing children, the researcher notes that the adoption of effective socio-economic policies can be very crucial to the closing of the achievement gap in Georgia County and the US at large. The most effective socio-economic policies are the ones targeting the attainment of more equal school attendance for children from both needy and affluent backgrounds in addition to enhance the readiness to learn among the poor students (Rothstein, 2004). The poverty conditions among the poor households are responsible to the low cognitive development of children from such backgrounds which results in the enhancement of the achievement gap. To help close the gap, the researcher proposes that the administrative bodies should enact policies targeting the development of effective pre-school programs to help children from poor backgrounds learn various basic skills they missed due to the lack of enabling social environments. The establishment of government funded pre-school programs in support of the mental development of children from poor backgrounds plays an important role in making the children ready for normal learning just like those from affluent backgrounds who enjoy supportive social environments.
The district education councils should develop effective policies with regard to the standardization of student scores. The use of standard and fixed education score policies in education institutions unfairly compares the performance of poor students with those of the rich ones, resulting in lack of promotion among the poor students whose performance is low due to the influence of poverty. The standardized system thus discourages the students from low-income backgrounds from developing the learning motivation due to their inability to meet the standardized pass marks resulting in them repeating classes. The policies to be formulated should however fairly gauge the student scores according to their abilities and talents and as a result enhance their motivation and resolutions to keep schooling through kindergarten and higher learning levels. Thus, the researcher advocates for some flexibility in curriculum implementation to help cater for the needs of the learning disabled students and enhance their passion for education.
Adoption of Effective Teacher Preparation Programs
In the college and university training of standard teachers, the design of their learning program is to prepare them for a standardized teaching program. In reality, the teachers come face to face with students with diverse needs upon which a standardized and rigid teaching curriculum is never effective. Thus, this situation becomes very tough for the teachers in case they lack skills to address the varied student academic needs. The researcher proposes that the teacher training programs should focus on the diversity of students’ right from their cultural diversities to their achievement varieties. The programs should enable the upcoming teachers to understand the role of parents in enhancing student performance at a young age and as a result equip them with skills to help them engage parents in the process of teaching young kindergarten students.
Local school district administrations should also regularly establish workshops with the aim of keeping the teachers updated with the diverse student needs especially when handling high performing and low performing students with cognitive disabilities. The workshops will help enhance the level of preparation of the teachers with regard to handling low-performing students whose performance is strongly influenced by their socio-economic backgrounds. The workshops can thus play an important role in equipping the teachers with the best skills to employ in the classrooms to help enhance the performance levels of the students despite their diverse needs. Thus, the researcher argues that effective preparation of teachers with regard to the true classroom environment is very important in ensuring they develop effective policies capable of upraising the student performance. Standard treatment of teachers are virtual and oblivious of the cultural diversity of the students in the classrooms, hence, the need to have the teachers adequately prepared on how best to boost the performance of the low-achieving students from poor backgrounds.
Development of Inclusive Teaching Methods and Programs
The researcher argues that this strategy is very important in enhancing the learning abilities of students suffering from cognitive disabilities. Through this technique, the researcher notes that teachers should adopt teaching strategies tailored towards the enhancement of the learning process of both the high achieving students and the low-performing ones. The inclusive methods should ensure that the teachers develop programs for all students in addition to developing subsidiary ones targeting the academic achievement needs of the ones from low-economic backgrounds.
The first step in the researchers proposed strategy is to ensure that all the students both the high and low achieving ones should learn in same classrooms. As such, the cognitively disabled ones will easily learn from their peers in addition to seeking help at the absence of teachers from them. Secondly, the researcher notes that incase schools have only standard trained teachers; they should develop flexible teaching mechanisms such that they are able to meet the comprehension needs of the high achieving students and the low-achieving ones. If a school is endowed with both specially trained teachers and the standard trained ones, the standard teachers should teach the students first before the specially trained teachers come to go through the already taught content to enhance the comprehension levels of the students who may have failed to efficiently understand what was taught in the earlier class. This teaching program will help the cognitively disabled students to understand what was being taught in the earlier classes.
The inclusive teaching method thus helps teachers understand the cultural and performance diversities of the students, prompting the educators to develop highly innovative teaching techniques that foster the academic needs of both the cognitively disabled students and the high performing ones. This is because, the high performing students present in the repetition classes get the chance to understand the taught content to a deeper level. Thus, the researcher observes that the inclusive teaching method is efficiently designed to help enhance the performance level of both the high-performing students and the low-performing ones.
Data Collection and Analysis
This study will embrace a mixed methods approach in its data collection and analysis process to help achieve the study objectives. The data collection process will be conducted on the selected ten students originating from low-income backgrounds to help examine the impact of poverty on cognitive development of young kindergarten students. However, data triangulation will be an important focus point in this research as through the method, the researcher will be able to access the views of different stakeholders who are directly involved in handling and guiding the young needy students. The triangulation method is important in enhancing the validity of the study findings as it helps enlarge the data sources in addition to providing the researcher with a wide variety of data collection instruments.
Based on the data triangulation approach, this study has a total participant population comprised of teachers, parents, local education district officials and the students themselves. The parents of the students will be expected to provide data with regard to their income status, education level and the personal perception of the social environment accorded the students while at home and most especially before they started schooling. The teachers will provide information with regard to their observation of the conduct of the students with delayed cognitive development and provide their scores vis-à-vis those from affluent backgrounds. These data from the teachers will be important in the evaluation of the level of academic performance of the young children with learning disabilities.
The local education officials will enrich this study with information with regard to the strategies employed to help enhance the school attendance and performance of children from low-income backgrounds who most probably suffer from delayed cognitive disabilities. Additionally, the education offices will provide data with regard to the current achievement gap in Georgia County to help enhance the understanding of the situation that prompted this research to evaluate the relationship between poverty and cognitive development.
The study will use random and purposive sampling in the selection of the study participants to help acquire the requisite data. The random sampling process will help select the required participants in the quantitative data collection process to help avoid bias who shall mostly be the parents who lack the openness to elaborately share their plight and quantities of income in interview sessions. Data for this study will be collected through various methods in both the qualitative and quantitative perspectives. In the qualitative consideration, the researcher will use direct observation method and record the observed characteristics of the student participants in a pre-specified format. The purposive sampling technique will be used by the researcher to aid in the selection of students to take part in the study process. The researcher will then conduct direct interviews with the students, their teachers, parents and the district education officials. Parents and teachers will also be directly provided with open-ended questionnaires, which will be collected within a week after administration, upon which they will provided unbiased responses. Children are considered too young to respond to questionnaires, hence will be most suited for the provision of qualitative data through interviews and observation. These data collection instruments and processes will be crucial to the realization of the study objectives and the triangulated data sources will help enhance the validity of the study.
The data will then be collected and coded for analysis in the qualitative perspective while the quantitative data collected in the administered questionnaires will be analyzed by the use of the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The data analysis process in this study will be comprehensive and all the study findings will be presented in the forms of tables and graphs in a simplified manner to enhance their comprehension. Thus, the study shall easily present its study findings to all concerned parties for analysis and evaluation.
Triangulation Matrix
| Students | Teachers | Parents | Education Officers | |
| Population | 10 kindergarten students | At least 4 elementary school teachers | 10 student parents | At least 1 education officer |
| Is poverty related to cognitive disabilities? | Respond in interviews | Respond in interviews | Respond in questionnaires | Respond in interviews |
| How many of the cognitive students come from poor family backgrounds?
| Don’t respond | Respond in interviews | Don’t respond | Don’t respond. |
| Has the government put enough efforts to help students with cognitive disabilities? | Respond in interviews | Respond in interviews | Respond in questionnaires | Respond in interviews |
| Do you propose inclusive classrooms for students with learning disabilities? | Respond in interviews | Respond in interviews | Respond in questionnaires | Respond in interviews |
| What in your opinion should be done to help reduce the achievement gap in schools? | Respond in interviews | Respond in interviews | Respond in questionnaires | Respond in interviews |
Reflection
This study critically analyzes the existing condition with regard to the influence of poverty on the cognitive development rate of young children. As noted by most researchers, poverty has a positive correlation with delayed cognitive development among young children especially in their pre-school life. This prompted me to propose various strategies to help mitigate the impact of poverty on the cognitive development of young children. The proposals of the remedy strategies are very encouraging and sharing with others on how best to join hands in reduce the influence of poverty on the cognitive development of young children can be an amazing experience. Making my classmates and other relevant personnel understand the need to provide enabling policies to help reduce poverty in the long-term through reducing the achievement gap will be a great feeling. I can feel very settled and satisfied if my colleagues, friends and other stakeholders understood the need to for a collective effort to help alleviate the cognitive condition of young children living in poverty.
This study is comprehensively outsourced and is anchored on valid findings from other earlier scholars, making it highly reliable. The study will help enhance my teaching skills in inclusive classrooms, as it will help me understand the plight of children with learning disabilities in addition to helping me select the best teaching methods to boost the comprehension levels of all students. I will use the information in this study to help advice the school administrators on how best we can address the academic needs of the students from low-income backgrounds to help boost their confidence and comprehension levels in addition to helping reduce the achievement gap. This study when shared with other education stakeholders will guide the development of enabling policies to help enhance the welfare of children from poor backgrounds in addition to reducing the achievement gap.
This research proposal has opened a lot of insight in me with regard to the massive impact of poverty on the cognitive development of young children. The study has greatly changed my teaching style and as a result, motivated me to research further on the best teaching methods to adopt to enhance the comprehension levels of the young students unfortunately caught up with learning disabilities due to poverty.
A colleague of mine questioned the proposition to have children with learning disabilities in the same classroom with average and high achieving students. However, as noted by Duncan & Brooks-Gunn (2000) I wish to reiterate that cognitive learning disabilities once noted early in life can be rectified and students suffering from such conditions can efficiently improve their academic performance. Inclusive classrooms have been found to enhance peer learning and as a result, the students with cognitive disabilities can gradually cope up with the learning pace of their colleagues through classroom interactions and sharing (Anderson et al., 2003). Thus, inclusive classrooms are the some of the best means of enhancing the academic performance level of students with learning disabilities though teachers need to employ other effective measures such as lesson repetitions with special teachers.
Another colleague commented that he does not think their actually exists a direct link between poverty and cognitive disabilities. However, from research, it is evident that poverty is directly related to the level of student performance and the achievement gap is skewed with respect to the income levels of the backgrounds the students originate from. The main impact of poverty is manifested in the pre-school life of the young children as through poverty, students’ lack an enabling social environment making them miss important language learning skills (Lee & Burkham, 2002). Lack of advanced education is considered the cause of poverty in most neighborhoods due to the inability of adults to secure meaningful jobs, hence leaving them with the option of working in farms and factories as casual laborers. The parents lack the necessary education to read loud books to their children and equally lack the funds to purchase reading, writing and pictorial books for their children. Such conditions in addition to the occasional miss of food due to the lack of sufficient disposable income can easily influence the performance of children in school.
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Appendix
OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONNAIRE Administered to parents
Name: (optional) _____________________ Section: ______________
- What is your highest educational qualification?
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
- What is your occupation and how much do you earn?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
- In your opinion, is the amount of income you receive able to meet the household and academic needs of your children? Why?
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
- If with low income, do you think the governments are doing enough to boost your welfare and those of your children?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
- What is the performance of your child in kindergarten?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
- Do you think your child competes favorably with other children? Why?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________.
