A new Florida State University study has
found that adolescent boys who are hurt in just two physical fights
suffer a loss in IQ that is roughly equivalent to missing an entire year
of school. Girls experience a similar loss of IQ after only a single
fighting-related injury.
The findings are significant because
decreases in IQ are associated with lower educational achievement and
occupational performance, mental disorders, behavioral problems and even
longevity, the researchers said.
“It’s no surprise that being severely
physically injured results in negative repercussions, but the extent to
which such injuries affect intelligence was quite surprising,” said
Joseph A. Schwartz, a doctoral student who conducted the study with
Professor Kevin Beaver in FSU’s College of Criminology and Criminal
Justice.
Their findings are outlined in the
paper, “Serious Fighting-Related Injuries Produce a Significant
Reduction in Intelligence,” which was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
The study is among the first to look at the long-term effects of
fighting during adolescence, a critical period of neurological
development.
About four percent of high school students are injured as a result of a physical fight each year, the researchers said.
Schwartz and Beaver used data from the
National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health collected between 1994
and 2002 to examine whether serious fighting-related injuries resulted
in significant decreases in IQ over a five- to six-year time span. The
longitudinal study began with a nationally representative sample of
20,000 middle and high school students who were tracked into adulthood
through subsequent waves of data collection. At each wave of data
collection, respondents were asked about a wide variety of topics,
including personality traits, social relationships and the frequency of
specific behaviours.
Source: Science Daily.
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