IQ and testosterone in children

When most people hear the word testosterone, they think of strength, power and virility. Images might come to mind of athletic muscular men and women might think of handsome chisel jawed figures. These are all, we are led to believe, positive images associated with testosterone - but is testosterone the undiluted "good" that we think it is?

We all know that too much testosterone can lead to an angry, violent disposition - as revealed in the recent murder-suicide by the well known wrestler, Chris Benoit, in whose body steroids were found. So testosterone has its dark side. Yet, there are other drawbacks to testosterone that are not widely known - indeed, some have only been recently observed.

Have a think about this: what would you think would be the influence of testosterone on IQ and intelligence in children? Would more testosterone mean a brighter child? Would less testosterone mean a dimmer child?

A varied group of scientists decided to answer this question and published their results in their paper: Intelligence and salivary testosterone levels in prepubertal children by
Daniela Ostatníková, Peter Celec, Zdeněk Putz, Július Hodosy, Filip Schmidt, Jolana Laznibatová and Matúš Kúdela.

Most of these researchers are from Comenius University in Bratislava in the Slovak Republic, hence their unfamiliar names.

Testosterone has long been believed to influence intellectual function - and determine the sex differences in cognitive abilities between genders. Their study sought to tease out the truth to these matters.

They took 284 prepubertal children aged 6 to 9 years old of both sexes and took samples of their salivary testosterone levels. The children formed three groups: 107 gifted children with IQs above 130; 100 children of average intelligence (IQ 70 to 130) and 77 mentally challenged/retarded children with IQs below 70.

Unexpectedly, a commonality was found between the low IQ children and the high IQ children. Both the low IQ and the high IQ children had LOW LEVELS OF TESTOSTERONE. The children with high levels of testosterone fell into the average range of intelligence. These differences were statistically significant.

There was no significant difference between the high IQ and low IQ groups' concentration of testosterone.

Please note that these results apply only to the boys: the girls showed no significant differences in testosterone between any of the groups.

The researchers did not offer an explanation as to why the low and high IQ groups gave the same result - nor why high testosterone should connote average intelligence. The matter needs further investigation.

I think these results are interesting and have application in our understanding of the world. High testosterone males are usually easy to recognize - but they are not usually outstanding intellectually - now we have a study that gives us an insight into the situation, even if it doesn't yet provide an explanation.

(If you would like to read about Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and seven months, and his gifted brothers, Fintan, four years and no months, and Tiarnan, seventeen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of gifted education, IQ, intelligence, child prodigy, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, gifted children and gifted adults in general. Thanks.)

IQ testing without IQ testing

Are there ways to discover an IQ, without an IQ test?

Yes. Many. In fact ANY test, that involves thought, can be found to correlate with IQ.

So, what does this mean for those of you who, perhaps, find traditional IQ testing too expensive (as it is in Singapore...)? Well, if you have taken other tests in the course of your education, they can certainly be used to estimate IQ. For instance, the SATs. There are conversion tools available that allow you to convert a SAT result into an IQ. They do this by relating the SAT result to the IQ typical of someone who gets that result. In this manner, an IQ may be derived, without actually taking a conventional IQ test.

The same, of course, applies to any test that involves g, the general intelligence factor. That means that any test which invokes higher thought will have a correlation with IQ. That basically means any rigorous academic test whatsoever. The only problem is knowing what the correlation is - but in principle it could be done for any rigorous academic examination. There will always be a correlation and there will always be a typical IQ of a particular result. For some tests these relationships will have been calculated. I don't know of any apart from the SAT for which this has been done - but it is not difficult to do.

In a very real sense, I did a similar sort of calculation for my son's Chemistry O Level - I calculated the mental age that is required to pass an O level. I then used this to derive my son's minimum ratio IQ required to achieve this milestone by dividing the mental age required for an O level, by his actual age. You, too, could do similar calculations for any rigorous test your child has taken. It is a valid, logical, reasonable procedure that is scientifically sound.

This means that ANY "achievement test", with a true thinking component, will be able to act as an indirect, surrogate method for estimating IQ. The Physical Sciences - with their very strong g component - would prove to be a very effective surrogate for an IQ test, if the relationship between score and IQ and age, has been worked out.

So, perhaps you won't have to spend a fortune on an IQ test to, at the very least, determine whether you are gifted - or your child is - and into what band they fall: MG, HG, EG or PG...or even PG+, as may be the case.

Good luck.

(If you would like to learn more of Ainan Celeste Cawley, a scientific child prodigy, aged seven years and four months, and his gifted brothers, Fintan, three, and Tiarnan, fourteen months, please go to: http://scientific-child-prodigy.blogspot.com/2006/10/scientific-child-prodigy-guide.html I also write of child prodigy, IQ, intelligence, gifted education, child genius, baby genius, adult genius, savant, the creatively gifted, gifted adults and gifted children in general. Thanks.)