“Studies Skewed By Focus On Well-Off, Educated Brains”
Published in
1 min readDec 17, 2018
“when the sample reflected the U.S. population, children’s brains reached several development milestones much earlier.
One of these milestones involved the total surface of the brain’s cortex, which plays a key role in in memory and thought. The unweighted data showed that this surface area continued to increase until after a child’s 12thbirthday. The weighted data showed a much earlier peak — before age 10…
This study doesn’t look at what those differences might mean for children’s emotional and intellectual development. The key point is rather that researchers should make sure that they’re looking at a representative sample when they’re defining “normal.”
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