Association of Maternal and Paternal IQ With Offspring Conduct, Emotional, and Attention Problem Scores

Abstract

Context Lower IQ individuals have an increased risk of psychological disorders, mental health problems, and suicide; similarly, children with low IQ scores are more likely to have behavioural, emotional and anxiety disorders. However, very little is known about the impact of parental IQ on the mental health outcomes of their children. Objective To determine whether maternal and paternal IQ score is associated with offspring conduct, emotional and attention scores. Design Cohort. Setting General population. Participants Members of 1958 National Child Development Study and their offspring. Of 2,984 parent-offspring pairs, with non-adopted children aged 4+ years, 2,202 pairs had complete data on all variables of interest and were included in the analyses. Outcome measure Offspring conduct, emotional and attention scores based on Behavioural Problems Index for children aged 4-6 years or the Rutter A scale for children aged 7 and over. Results There was little evidence of any association of parental IQ with conduct or emotional problems in younger (aged 4-6) children. However, among children aged 7+, there was strong evidence from age- and sex-adjusted models to support a decrease in conduct, emotional and attention problems in those whose parents had higher IQ scores. These associations were linear across the full IQ range. Individual adjustments for socioeconomic status and child’s own IQ had limited impact while adjustments for Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME) scores and parental malaise attenuated associations with mother’s IQ but, again, had little impact on associations with father’s IQ. Strong associations were no longer evident in models that simultaneously adjusted for all four potential mediating variables. Conclusions Children whose parents score poorly on IQ tests may have an increased risk of conduct, emotional and attention problems. Home environment, parental malaise, and child’s own IQ may have a role in explaining these associations.

Prospective assessment of autism traits in children exposed to antiepileptic drugs during pregnancy

“…Maternal IQ and family SES were also lower in the autistic traits group, but these differences were not statistically significant (Maternal IQ U 670.5, p = 0.11; SES U 653.5, p = 0.084). Nevertheless, given the known association in the general population between these variables and child IQ, 26,27 and the importance of these variables for long-term outcomes in children born to women with epilepsy, 3 these variables were retained for regression analyses. No group differences were found with regard to alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, or other drug use during pregnancy; preconception folic acid; parental age or paternal education; epilepsy type; duration of breastfeeding; pregnancy complications; birth type; anesthetic use; or number of children born prematurely.…”

Performance IQ in children is associated with blood cadmium concentration in early pregnancy

“…First, neurodevelopment in children may be affected by many genetic and environmental factors. Factors associated with poor performance IQ include low socioeconomic status [46]; poverty [47]; lack of stimulation in the home [48], including lack of maternal warmth; poor maternal education [49]; iron deficiency [50,51]. To study the effects of cadmium exposure duration pregnancy on the IQ of their children, it was Table 2 Multiple linear regression analysis of the association between the performance IQ of children and maternal blood cadmium concentrations after adjustment for covariates # .…”

School age effects of the Newborn Individualized Developmental Care and Assessment Program for medically low-risk preterm infants: Preliminary findings

“…School-age anthropometric, medical, and academic history indices were measured or obtained by parent interview. [27] Parent-IQ, reportedly correlating with child functioning,[28] was measured with the Kaufman Brief Intelligence Test, Second Edition (KBIT-2),[29] yielding a Verbal IQ, Non-Verbal IQ, and Mental Processing Composite (Mean- x : 100; standard deviation-SD: 15). Should parent-IQ, hypothesized to be comparable between groups, correlate with child-IQ, all outcome measures would be corrected for parent-IQ.…”