When they sat down with all the data and compared each child's Simon score, poverty history, and allostatic-load reading, they found that the three measures correlated--more time in poverty meant higher allostatic-load numbers and lower scores in Simon. But then came the surprise--When they used statistical techniques to factor out the allostatic load, the poverty effect disappeared completely. It wasn't poverty that was compromising the executive function abilities of the poor kids, it was the stress that went along with it.