| Spanking lowers a child's IQ,
researcher says |
Being spanked as a child is linked to having a lower IQ, according to a
study presented today at the International Conference on Violence, Abuse and
Trauma in San Diego.
The relationship between spanking and intelligence is found in children
around the world, said the lead author of the study, University of New
Hampshire professor Murray Straus. Children in the United States who were
spanked had lower IQs -- by 2.8 to 5 points -- than those who were not
spanked, Straus found.
Straus studied 806 children ages 2 to 4 and 704 ages 5 to 9. Both groups
were retested four years later. How often parents spanked influenced IQ
score. "The more spanking, the slower the development of the child's mental
ability," Straus said in a news release. "But even small amounts of spanking
made a difference."
Straus and his colleagues looked at corporal punishment practices in 32
countries by surveying 17,404 university students. The analysis found a
lower average IQ in nations in which spanking was more prevalent. The
strongest link between corporal punishment and IQ was for those whose
parents continued to use corporal punishment even when they were teenagers.
"It is ... time for the United States to begin making the advantages of not
spanking a public health and child welfare focus, and eventually enact
federal no-spanking legislation," he said.
How would spanking impact intelligence? Straus suggests that the chronic
stress created by regular spanking creates post-traumatic stress symptoms in
children. PTSD is linked to lower IQ. Economic status also underlies both
spanking practices and IQ, Straus said, a leading researcher on corporal
punishment. His studies were funded, in part, by the National Institute of
Mental Health.
Another study, reported earlier this month in Booster Shots, found that many
poor children are spanked at ages as young as 1 and that the practice is
tied to more aggressive behavior by age 2 and delayed social-emotional
development by age 3.
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