Children In Better-Educated Households Have Higher IQs

New findings published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences show that adults who were raised in educated households are more likely to develop higher cognitive ability than those who were brought up in less ideal environments.

During the study, researchers measured the IQ of 436 Swedish male siblings in which one member was reared by biological parents and the other adoptive parents. The IQ of the adopted males, between 18-20, was 4.4 points higher than non-adopted siblings.

"In Sweden, as in most Western countries, there is a substantial excess of individuals who wish to adopt compared to adoptive children available," said joint first author Kenneth S. Kendler, M.D., professor of psychiatry and human and molecular genetics in the Department of Psychiatry, VCU School of Medicine, in a news release. "Therefore, adoption agencies see it as their goal of selecting relatively ideal environments within which to place adoptive children."

Adoptive parents involved in the study were typically more educated and in better socioeconomic standing than biological parents. Parental education was also rated on a five-point scale with each additional unit of education was rated on a five-point scale by rearing parents associated with 1.71 more units of IQ.

"Many studies of environmental effects on cognitive ability are based on special programs like Head Start that children are placed in for a limited amount of time," said joint-first author Eric Turkheimer, a U.Va. professor of psychology. "These programs often have positive results while the program is in place, but they fade quickly when it is over. Adoption into a more educated household is the most permanent kind of environmental change, and it has the most lasting effects."

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