IQ can rise or fall significantly during adolescence

November, 2011

A small study of adolescents shows marked variability in IQ over a four-year period for many of them. This variability correlated with specific changes in the brain.

IQ has long been considered to be a fixed attribute, stable across our lifetimes. But in recent years, this assumption has come under fire, with evidence of the positive and negative effects education and experiences can have on people’s performance. Now a new (small) study provides a more direct challenge.

In 2004, 33 adolescents (aged 12-16) took IQ tests and had their brains scanned. These tests were repeated four years later. The teenagers varied considerably in their levels of ability (77-135 in 2004; 87-143 in 2008). While the average IQ score remained the same (112; 113), there were significant changes in the two IQ scores for some individuals, with some participants gaining as much as 21 points, and others falling as much as 18 points. Clear change in IQ occurred for a third of the participants, and there was no obvious connection to specific attributes (e.g., low performers didn’t get better while high performers got worse).

These changes in performance correlated with structural changes in the brain. An increase in verbal IQ score correlated with an increase in the density of grey matter in an area of the left motor cortex of the brain that is activated when articulating speech. An increase in non-verbal IQ score correlated with an increase in the density of grey matter in the anterior cerebellum, which is associated with movements of the hand. Changes in verbal IQ and changes in non-verbal IQ were independent.

While I’d really like to see this study repeated with a much larger sample, the findings are entirely consistent with research showing increases in grey matter density in specific brain regions subsequent to specific training. The novel part of this is the correlation with such large changes in IQ.

The findings add to growing evidence that teachers shouldn’t be locked into beliefs about a student’s future academic success on the basis of past performance.

Postscript: I should perhaps clarify that IQ performance at each of these time points was age-normed - this is not a case of children just becoming 'smarter with age'.

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