Worried about your teen's IQ?

In senior high school, we were given IQ tests which our school experts evaluated. Based on their evaluation, we were given their top two recommendations as to which field/career we should pursue. I could only guess that the convention then was to match scores in aspects of IQ (verbal, non-verbal etc.) with the known demands of certain fields of learning. In the end, I did not pursue any of those that they recommended which was to be either a lawyer or a musician. The life of my mind seemed to have swayed differently from what the experts thought my IQ tests in high school said about what I should concentrate on. I am sure this is also true for many of you. And what about those classmates in high school whom you thought were such academic losers and yet later on, you learned that they soared in college and onwards (or vice versa)?

IQ has been some sort of general measure of one’s ability to succeed in school and in your job. The idea of IQ has been widely regarded as relatively stable — that once it has been set, it would more or less, stay at that level. As such, the bearer of the IQ and the ones who know about it, like your parents, might be influenced accordingly in that you all would think that your intelligence as reflected in your IQ, is a done deal. While I find that innately ridiculous knowing now that the mind is the most plastic thing there is, there have been no brain scans to prove it. Well, not until a group of neuroscientists led by Cathy Price from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging in the University College, London published their findings in the journal Nature last Nov. 3 in a study entitled “Verbal and non-verbal intelligence changes in the teenage brain.”  

The scientists had 33 adolescents (12 to 16 years old) whom they tested for their IQ. This included verbal IQ that involved measurements for not just language but also for arithmetic and general knowledge, as well as non-verbal measures (puzzles and identifying missing elements in given images.) Using MRI, they also took the brain scans of these teenagers who took these IQ tests. Four years later, they retested (IQ and brain scans) these same kids when they were already 15 to 20 years old.

The IQ tests showed that their IQ points changed up to 20 points between the two testing events. What is more important was that these 20 points were seen in the changes in their brain scans four years later. This means that those lost or gained points in the non-verbal aspect of IQ were “seen” in the cerebellum, specifically in that part responsible for hand-eye coordination and the changes in verbal IQ was “tucked” in that part of the left hemisphere known to control speech. This means that whatever those teenagers learned, corresponded to physical changes in the brain parts involved in those kinds of learning. What they had (their brain) changed with what they did with it (mind).

What could this mean? It means that your teenager’s IQ may not be the mental fixture most of us thought permanently defined our abilities. If she were shining now, it is no guarantee that she will not lose that “spark” or that if she seems “underachieving” to you, that things will not one day light up. The study only tested for any differences after four years but I hope they can test them again every four years or so. Then we would know the milestones in human lives that cause our intelligence, at least those areas that can be measured by IQ, to rise and fall. Then they could provide the brain scans that could pinpoint the “neuromarkers” that match these increases or decreases in IQ. 

So as much as most parents consider the teenage years as the most “brain damaged” stage of their children’s lives, this study seems to prove otherwise. It showed that the brain during this stage is very capable of making significant movements in intelligence, both forward and back. Nature seemed to have armed us with enough “malleability” at this stage. The rest is up to complex web of experience we call “nurture” to do the rest.

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