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Test predicts which children will grow up to be drain on society
Dotheboyshall
12-12-2016
when they are three years old

Chilling
tiacat
12-12-2016
I was quite shocked by this, I saw it on the news earlier.

I think more research is needed though.
striing
12-12-2016
Having seen how different children are at 2 1/2 this doesn't surprise me at all. But it doesn't exactly make predictions of criminality etc; you could spin it the other way and say it helps to identify who will need extra support to reach their potential, though you could ask any half decent early years educator ad they will be able to tell you from seeing the children and their parents/grandparents every day.

I predict that this will be yet another stick to beat schools with for not solving all the ills of society.
nomad2king
12-12-2016
I remember research from over 20 years ago that found this. Paying special attention to children between the ages of 2 1/2 and 3 1/2 was essential. It even improved those with limited intelligence, eg Down's Syndrome.
Aneechik
12-12-2016
To be fair, you can usually work this out just by looking at the parents.
petedajag
12-12-2016
"A simple test at the age of three can determine whether children will grow up to be a burden on society, needing excessive welfare, ending up in jail or becoming obese"

First sentence on link, glad I am not obese, categorized with scrubbers and wasters!
striing
12-12-2016
Originally Posted by Aneechik:
“To be fair, you can usually work this out just by looking at the parents.”

That's sort of what I was getting at. Not always but unfortunately yes usually.

I'm more interested in the bit we don't have research on - the 1/3 who don't use services but pay in taxes. It would be interesting to know if that is just down to economics (born into money) and things like genes (for health) or if something else ever intervenes to change it, ie whether there is there any percentage of that 1/3 who started with nothing but changetheir outcomes.
bspace
12-12-2016
At some point we are as a society going to have to come to terms with our attitude towards anything which looks like eugenics. Should we really fail these children and should we disregard the benifits to the wider society of intervention.

Quote:
“Rena Subotnik, director of the Center for Psychology in Schools and Education for the American Psychological Association, said that if problem children could be targeted early society could benefit hugely in the long term.

“You get the best bang for the buck with early intervention,” she said. “These are all traits that can be controlled and improved upon, so identifying them in young children is a gift, and all of society would benefit.

Prof Moffitt added: “This study really gives a pretty clear picture of what happens if you don’t intervene.””

striing
12-12-2016
Originally Posted by bspace:
“At some point we are as a society going to have to come to terms with our attitude towards anything which looks like eugenics. Should we really fail these children and should we disregard the benifits to the wider society of intervention.”

This research isn't about eugenics though. Obviously we do do that with pre-natal screening to a certain extent but it is unlikely to be helpful to conflate it with early intervention for children once they have been born.
Rooftopcowboy
13-12-2016
Interesting that when they stripped out the children in poverty from the data, the middle class kids had a similar % that had difficulties when they were older, goes to show that love and attention matters more than money.
dee123
13-12-2016
Creepy.
RobinOfLoxley
13-12-2016
Just another shit-stirring clickbaity spin from the Telegraph.

I bet the Guardian could use the same Data and come up with how the underprivileged never have a chance.

It just reinforces prejudices.
solarflare
13-12-2016
Has anyone read the minority report?
SeasideLady
13-12-2016
Quote by Aristotle. Give me a child until he is seven, and I will show you the man. Pretty much saying that by the time a child reaches seven years old, the life they will have led will have an impact on them for the future.
muggins14
13-12-2016
Very odd. I watched a film last night called The Testing. It's set in the not too distant future where the nations of the world have agreed that there are too many people and each nation has a way of getting rid of 5% of it's population a year, some by culling older people, others by forbidding more than 1 child.

This film's set in the USA, where each year the kids are tested, from around age 6-7, and the lowest 5% are taken off for The Testing - put down in other words.

I do not believe that you can look at a person at such a young age and tell whether they will be a financial burden on society, or even a health one.

As adults we see people turn their lives around all the time, health-wise and income-wise, we see people do things they never thought they would do because of what's going on around them and inside them. We are influenced every day by what happens in our lives, in our world, in our society. We see good men commit acts of evil, successful, powerful men, and ordinary people with little in the name of wealth or health commit acts of heroism. We see children from dreadful circumstances, awful homes who would be written off at an early age, make something of themselves and others from 'good' homes do terrible things.

Nobody will every be able to convince me you could predict any of these things from the age of 3, because everything that happens to a person every single day, everything they experience affects their lives going forward from that point.

ETA: To add, from personal experience - my daughter, at the age of 3, was told she would never walk. She walks. At 8 that she would never be able to use a toilet, she does, at 14 that she would never be able to read - she's starting to (very slowly). If a severely disabled child can change so much against all the predictions, an able person would surely do many different things than expected from them at 3.
bspace
13-12-2016
Originally Posted by striing:
“This research isn't about eugenics though. Obviously we do do that with pre-natal screening to a certain extent but it is unlikely to be helpful to conflate it with early intervention for children once they have been born.”

I know it's not, however many people's reaction to it is coloured by such ideas.
Tassium
13-12-2016
Studies and observation have repeatedly shown that it's a persons environment that determines their social future.

Their socio-eonomic level and their parents.


And how bizarre that anyone should seek to correlate criminal activities with obesity! What kind of loons are these who are making these claims?
bspace
13-12-2016
Originally Posted by Tassium:
“Studies and observation have repeatedly shown that it's a persons environment that determines their social future.

Their socio-eonomic level and their parents.


And how bizarre that anyone should seek to correlate criminal activities with obesity! What kind of loons are these who are making these claims?”

But their not are they, well not in the crackpot way you imply. They're correlating a range of things which are particularly detrimental to individuals and society, like criminal activities and obesity.
Dotheboyshall
13-12-2016
Would a government use this information for good (ie providing the support) or for evil (saying they are a lost case therefore shouldn't receive any money or assistance).
striing
13-12-2016
Originally Posted by muggins14:
“Nobody will every be able to convince me you could predict any of these things from the age of 3, because everything that happens to a person every single day, everything they experience affects their lives going forward from that point.

ETA: To add, from personal experience - my daughter, at the age of 3, was told she would never walk. She walks. At 8 that she would never be able to use a toilet, she does, at 14 that she would never be able to read - she's starting to (very slowly). If a severely disabled child can change so much against all the predictions, an able person would surely do many different things than expected from them at 3.”

That is the point of the research. To identify anyone who might be at risk of underachievement and provide a business case for spending money on them at an early age in a competing environment where we don't have enough ambulances/can't care for our elderly etc. Making a case for early intervention is hard when government is necessarily a short term activity.

On your second point, medicine still has a long way to go to catch up with education and focus on progress and development rather than 'impairment'. That is also difficult though when what many people want is a label to say what they can't do so they can use it to passport into other benefits. I've dealt with parents who flatly refuse to allow anything positive to be written about their child.
Bagshot85
13-12-2016
We aren't too far away from a Minority Report type scenario happening.
Scary to think that those in power have access to such awful things.
I'm convinced that we're going to have a Gattica/Minority Report hellish type of world in the not too distant future.
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