Poverty isn't just a social disease, it is also "brain poison"

Here is a link to Paul Krugman's missive on poverty and brain development. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/18/opinion/18krugman.html?ex=1360990800&en=343c7b126d4e041b&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

In it, he cites a paper delivered at last weeks American Association for the Advancement of Science, by a psychologist/nueroscientist that provides evidence that the conditions of poverty "poisons the brain" of developing children.

I tried to find the original source or more coverage of it, but couldn't find much.

the authors suggested reading to kids as an antidote to the stress that poverty causes, which in turn, hurts developing brains.

If I understand this, stress is the proximal cause, with distal causes being poverty.

Nevertheless, it better explains the persistence of poverty in America than apologetic evolutionary theories.

Almost 1 in 5 US children live in poverty. Makes a shambles of such approaches to education as NCLB, doesn't it?

When are we going to realize that our own poverty puts us at a competitive disadvantage around the world?