Children Living Near Violence Suffer in Reading, Writing, and Thinking

Just living in an area where homicides occur can cause children to have lower scores in reading, writing, and thinking. The stress, fear, and helplessness children experience when they live in areas that they experience as threatening can interfere with their cognitive abilities in significant ways. That’s according to a new study reported this week.

Sociologist Patrick Sharkey of New York University studied the reading and language assessments of Chicago children whose neighborhoods experienced high rates of homicide. The children were tested between 1995 and 2002.

Among other variables, Sharkey tracked the trends in the test scores based on how close in time the tests were to specific episodes of violence. Children tested during periods of relative calm in their neighborhoods scored better than children tested close to the time of a violent incident.

In areas where homicides happen frequently, children’s ability to think may be impaired for up to three months out of the year. It’s hardly surprising if such children lag behind others in test scores.

The problem, according to researchers, is probably physiological. The stress and fear the children experience cause their bodies to produce hormones at rates and in balances that interfere with their thinking. A chronic state of fear and stress leads to chronic difficulties in reading, writing, and logic.

The good news is that the effects of the violence in the community, at least in terms of cognitive function, seems to be brief: about a week per violent incident. That offers hope for kids, parents, and educators in violent neighborhoods. It also suggests that more needs to be done to keep kids safe and to help them feel safe if the problems of inner city schools are ever likely to be resolved.

The study also suggests that efforts to help children in violent neighborhoods develop coping skills may be equally important to helping them succeed academically. The better children are able to process and deal with stress, the less likely they may be to suffer the temporary episodes of cognitive impairment that add up to slower progress in school over time.

Dr. Sharkey reported the results of his analysis in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences released yesterday.