2.8 Mental Development And Improvement In Academic Work

2.8 Mental Development and Improvement in Academic Work
On the topic of mental development and academic improvement, mention can be made of the study conducted by Simeon and Grantham-McGregor (1989) which focused on unearthing the effects the intake of breakfast produces on mental development and functioning among 90 pupils between the ages of 9 and 10 who placed on different nutritional levels. The focus of the study was to really examine the impact of the omission of breakfast on the mental development of three separate categories of children. The categories included stunted, non –stunted and children who had a history of having been severely malnourished. The study was conducted using the crossover design. The investigators run tests on
(1995) could be cited as relevant for a review. The purpose of this study was to unearth the short-term influence of breakfast on the cognitive function of mildly undernourished primary school pupil’s vis-à-vis children who were adequately nourished. This research was conducted across four primary schools in the rural parts of Jamaica. To gather data for this study, children were randomly allocated to a group that was being provided with either breakfast or a placebo (a quarter of an orange). Four cognitive tests were then conducted by the researchers. These tests included a visual search, digit span, verbal fluency and speed of information processing. The treatments were reversed and the tests repeated after a few days. The result from the test indicated that the performances of the undernourished children improved especially on the test of verbal fluency after they received breakfasts. The result was also indicative of the fact that children who previously adequately nourished did not manifest any important improvements after the tests were conducted. The outcome of this test and that of Grantham-McGregor lends solid credence to the fact that providing school pupils with meals in schools would have greater effects on their cognitive
Mention can be made of the study conducted by Lopez (1993) which examined 279 pupils who come from very low socio-economic backgrounds and he grouped into categories of being normal, wasted or stunted. It was reveled that there were no consistent discovery of any relationship between children’s performance in school and the intake of breakfasts especially I n the area of short-term visual memory, problem solving and or attention tasks in any of the groups that had sufficient nutrition. Lopez concluded that children’s academic performance could be enhanced through short-term tasks, motivation and as well as the maintenance of conditions of routines. He reiterated that breakfasts do not have any effect on the cognitive development of children. The gap in the study conducted by Lopez lies in the fact that he did not have any control over what the children consumed the previous night before the experiments were conducted given the condition that the children stayed in their respective