Gareth Manning, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Dr. Samms-Vaughn

Despite a continuous decline in levels over the last decade, poverty is a leading contributor to intellectual deficiencies in scores of our nation's children, an expert has suggested. Dr. Marigold Thorburn, former director of 3-D Projects, a community-based rehabilitation programme for children with disabilities, has identified severe poverty, poor interaction between children and their caregivers and the enormous stress some parents face, as some of the leading contributors to cognitive disabilities in children.

Cognitive disabilities are characterised by significant limitations in intellectual functioning and adaptive behaviour. These deficiencies often originate before age 18.

According to Dr. Thorburn, now a consultant, at least 75 per cent of these disabilities are mild, 15 per cent moderate and 10 per cent severe. Most children suffering from mild cognitive disabilities are hidden in regular schools. Twenty to 25 per cent of those are in primary and basic schools.

She notes "severe poverty is a risk factor" in different health maladies, including malnutrition and other forms of illness. It also increases susceptibility to involvement in crime. Dr. Thorborn says because of its relationship with so many issues, poverty creates various strains on children's sensibilities.

Of the near 15 per cent of Jamaicans who are poor, over 21 per cent live in rural districts. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) says half of Jamaicans living in poverty are children. Dr. Thorburn points to a large number of poor single mothers who are unprepared for motherhood and, hence, follow poor child-rearing practices. The '2006 Survey of Living Conditions', published by the Planning Institute of Jamaica, reports that 46.6 per cent of all households are headed by women. Most are concentrated in the Kingston Metropolitan region where females lead 52.2 per cent of households. Many of these women are marginally employed and live in inner-city communities.

"The mothers of these children are very young mothers. They have poor knowledge of child rearing [practices] and that kind of thing," explains Dr. Thorburn. "They go into pregnancy without any idea of what it is going to entail for them and so they are really unprepared to bring up children." She says in many cases these mothers are stressed and unable to provide the needed nutrition and stimulation for their children, which often leads to poor intellectual development.

A study conducted by head of the Early Childhood Commission, Dr. Maureen Samms Vaughn corroborates this. The study indicated that poor economic backgrounds affected the cognitive performance of pre-school children: children of better economic standings, who attended private schools, outperformed their peers from poor economic circumstances.

"This combination of the environment, the lack of education on the part of the mothers, and the lack of stimulation which is provided by ,again, the mothers, leads to inadequate development of the brain," Dr. Thorburn says.

She says verbal interaction between caregivers and children is important and often there is not enough of this in households because of the existence of certain attitudes and perceptions of children and their activities.

Stimulation process

"Another aspect of it is play and a lot of parents believe play is just play. It is not necessary... but it is all part of the stimulation process," discloses Dr. Thorburn. She adds that too many caregivers tend to punish negative behaviour rather than encourage positive behaviour in children and this also opens doors for stunted intellectual development.

"Mothers who are stressed have a greater difficulty in dealing with problems that their children have. So if the child acts out or refuses to pay attention to what the mother says.. then the mother will try to correct that by hitting the child to try and make them pay attention to her," relates Dr. Thorburn. She points out, however, that punishment has a reverse effect because children do not learn when they are punished; they learn more when they are encouraged. "This is the big problem in Jamaica, these very negative child rearing practices," says the child care expert.