“Advanced Paternal Age Is Associated with Impaired Neurocognitive Outcomes during Infancy and Childhood”

Dear old dad, but not mom, may cause lower IQs

by William Atkins
Tuesday, 10 March 2009
Page 1 of 3


!According to an Australian-led study, children of older fathers do not perform as well on intelligence tests as children of younger dads. However, these same children had higher scores on IQ tests when they had older aged mothers, when compared to younger ones.
The article “Advanced Paternal Age Is Associated with Impaired Neurocognitive Outcomes during Infancy and Childhood” is published in the journal PloS Medicine (6(3): e40 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1000040).Its authors are J. McGrath, S. Saha, A.G. Barnett, C. Foldi, T.H. Burne, D.W. Eyles, and others.The Australian researchers analyzed data from 33,437 children born in the United States between 1959 and 1965.The children had fathers as young as 14 years of age when they were born, and dads as old as 66 years.Intelligence quotient (IQ) tests had been given to these children when they were eight months old, and again at four years and seven years of age.The U.S.-based Collaborative Perinatal Project provided the tests. In addition, the children were tested at these three times for hand-eye coordination, reading, spelling, math, and sensory discrimination (such things as concentration, learning, thinking, memory, etc).Page two continues with the conclusions of the study, along with additional information.