THE TIMING OF THE INFLUENCES OF CUMULATIVE POVERTY ON CHILDRENS COGNITIVE-ABILITY AND ACHIEVEMENT

Is childhood such a critical period that, by the end of this period, c umulative poverty would have exerted maximum effect on children's cogn itive outcomes? Or are cognitive outcomes more a function of the lengt h of exposure to poverty regardless of the life stage in which the chi ld is exposed to poverty? The NLSY, which measures each child's cognit ive development repeatedly over time, was analyzed to answer these que stions. We distinguish between ability and achievement. Ability is a m ore stable trait than achievement and tends to be determined by both e nvironmental and genetic factors early in life. Achievement on the oth er hand is more acquired. This study shows that long-term poverty has substantial influences on both ability and achievement but the time pa tterns of these influences are distinctly different. Childhood appears to be a much more crucial period for the development of cognitive abi lity than early adolescence. In contrast, poverty experienced in adole scence appears to be more influential to adolescent achievement than p overty experienced earlier in life.