USA Today (12/28, Reinberg) reports, “Children who have more schooling may see their IQ improve,” according to a study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “Using data on men born between 1950 and 1958, the researchers looked at the level of schooling by age 30” and “IQ scores of the men when they were 19” and found that “comparing IQ scores before and after the education reform, the average increased by 0.6 points, which correlated with an increase in IQ of 3.7 points for an addition year of schooling,” a study author noted.
The results “suggest that education as late as the middle teenage years may have a sizeable effect on IQ, but do not challenge the well-documented importance of early childhood experiences on cognitive development,” according to the researchers.