The on-going Baby’s First Years research (https://www.babysfirstyears.com/ ) examines the impact on mothers and babies of modest cash gifts as a model of poverty reduction. It turns out that a little money goes a long way and affects the development of babies’ brains.
“Early childhood poverty is a risk factor for lower school achievement, reduced earnings, and poorer health, and has been associated with differences in brain structure and function. Whether poverty causes differences in neurodevelopment or is merely associated with factors that cause such differences, remains unclear. Here, we report estimates of the causal impact of a poverty reduction intervention on brain activity in the first year of life.” The Baby’s First Years study recruited 1,000 diverse low-income mother–infant dyads. Shortly after giving birth, mothers were randomized to receive either $333 or $20 monthly as an unconditional cash gift.
Infant brain activity was assessed at approximately 1 year of age in the child’s home. The results showed that infants in the higher-cash gift group showed more high-frequency brain activity which is associated with higher language, cognitive, and social-emotional skills.
Troller-Renfree, S.V., et al. (2022). The impact of a poverty reduction intervention on infant brain activity. Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. doi:10.1073/pnas.2115649119 [PDF]
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