Adolescence: Change and Continuity

Questions from Teachers . . . Answers from Students

We are students in the course HDFS 433, Developmental Transition to Adulthood. Hopefully the information that we have researched will be of help to you.

As far as background information, we have found that the majority of students who attend inner city schools live in poverty. It has been found that living in poverty can effect students' cognitive development for a number of reasons. Payne (1984) states that there are many contributors of cognitive underdevelopment, most of which occur in the home before kids start school. These include, " lack of stimulation at home, over stimulation at home, lack of familiarity with educational materials, nonexistent or inadequate verbal skills, lack of capacity for abstract thinking, authoritarian discipline in the home, lack of any discipline in the home, lack of respect for the value of education or for the teachers or other authority figures, present-time orientation (that is, no incentive to differ gratification), perceptual difficulties and a disorganized home life. (Payne, 1984, p.104)."

More specifically, researchers have found that there are theories that support the importance of environmental influences on children's cognitive ability. Although through researching we found it more relevant to focus specifically on the influences of poverty in early adolescents.

Two important aspects that poverty effects is ability and achievement (Guo,1998). Gou (1998) defines these terms in his article: He states that "…ability or developed ability as the rate of learning that has been influenced by the individual's environment since birth or even before birth, individual genetic makeup, and the interactions between the environment and the genetic makeup (pp.264)." Guo states that"…achievement is very much a function of ability, but not ability alone. Whether individuals realize, fail to realize, or exceed their intellectual potential is often heavily influenced by factors such as motivation and opportunity (pp. 265)."

While researching, Guo (1998) discovered that poverty effects children's ability during early childhood. This finding might be a possible explanation for students in your classroom. Because they have experienced poverty during their childhood years, their ability levels are delayed.

More importantly, Guo (1998) also found that poverty experienced during early adolescent is important for an individual's achievement. This might be because an impoverished environment effects motivation and opportunity, which are both functions of achievement (Guo, 1998).

This is the information that we have found about why students might be cognitively underdeveloped and how living poverty effect students' ability and achievement. We hope that this information proves to be beneficial with your classroom.

Sincerely,

Karen Sullivan

Amy Corbman

Heather Kliamorich

Emily Grubich

Last updated 4/16/01.