
The Science Behind Making Your Child Smarter - laurex
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-science-behind-making-your-child-smarter-11545660001
======
james_s_tayler
I think it should be renamed "The Dubious Science Behind Trying To Make
Smarter Adults"

I recently read Blueprint by Robert Plomin. Here is a pretty good summary:

[https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/24/blueprint-
by-r...](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/24/blueprint-by-robert-
plomin-review)

Plomin makes a pretty solid case in Blueprint that it's pretty much down to
genetics and yes, there are environmental differences, but no you cannot
manufacture them. They are random and unpredictable.

After having read that book as I was reading through this article I was
thinking back to a lot of the points laid out by Plomin. Namely the "Nature of
Nurture" finding that we our genetic predisposition drive our choices over the
long term which basically washes out the vast majority of things our parents
and school try to do for us. We basically stabilize our own IQs over time.

~~~
p1esk
_it 's pretty much down to genetics and yes, there are environmental
differences, but no you cannot manufacture them_

I'm not so sure. If you look at genius level people (Mozart, Einstein,
Perelman, etc) pretty much all of them had supportive, smart, educated, and
usually wealthy parents. Of course genetics plays a major role, but it's not
clear that genetics would overcome indifferent development environment.

~~~
james_s_tayler
Unless you're one of the leading behavioral genetics researchers who has
personally conducted multiple famous longitudinal studies (adoption studies,
monozygotic and dizygotic twin studies) since the mid 70s trying to nail down
exactly what the environment is responsible for and you have done a thorough
analysis of the literature and summarized it in a book. Then it's clear.

How much more rigorous of an analysis could you get?

The conclusion isn't that environment doesn't play a role. It does. The
conclusion is that shared environment (family, school etc) doesn't contribute
in any predictable way to the heritability of psychological traits (I think he
says it's less than 1% ~ 2%). All psychological traits are on average 50%
heritable (he says it ranges from 30% ~ 60% but it's on avg. 50%). The rest of
the variance is from so called "non-shared" environmental differences. If you
live in the same home with the siblings and go to the same school and are even
in the same class, you still don't have exactly the same experience. A lot of
your experiences are unique to and it's those things that shape you in
combination with your genetics. He concludes that after all the research that
has been done that non-shared environmental differences are unsystematic and
unstable which means they are essentially random and you can make no
predictions based on them and that implies you cannot systematically engineer
outcomes for people.

~~~
p1esk
_you cannot systematically engineer outcomes for people_

I'm describing a particular scenario, and I'm not sure your studies have any
data about it - the situation where a gifted child is developing in an
indifferent environment (not being stimulated or motivated). No one claims we
can turn _anyone_ into a genius. But I'm pretty sure one needs very fortunate
conditions to become one.

~~~
thaumasiotes
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srinivasa_Ramanujan)

It's not necessary.

~~~
james_s_tayler
This is a great counter example, but I would urge people not to get caught up
in trying to look for outliers to try and prove a point.

The parents comment still stands I think. You kinda have to ask is it always
the case that even in a bad home genius always manifests where it might? Or do
you sometimes find that it goes entirely to waste. I'd venture to say it
sometimes does go entirely to waste. On balance those kids probably go on to
do well above average and it's likely you've never heard 99.999% of their
names.

I'm not sure why people want to focus on outlier geniuses so much when
debating the claim that there is something they as a parent can do to
systematically engineer higher intelligence in their own children. I just
don't think it's that useful.

------
nwah1
This is "The Biodeterminist's Guide to Parenting" by Scott Alexander (of Slate
Star Codex fame)

[https://archive.fo/7RULL](https://archive.fo/7RULL)

~~~
nwah1
Here's an article on nootropics for children

[https://www.topcognitiveenhancers.com/nootropics-for-
childre...](https://www.topcognitiveenhancers.com/nootropics-for-
children-3-great-solutions-for-a-happier-calmer-and-more-focused-child/)

~~~
analognoise
That strikes me as "a short primer to chemical child abuse".

~~~
bottled_poe
I agree, the whole website seems to have no medical grounding and is just
selling snake oil.

~~~
nwah1
It references studies on human children subjects that I was able to look up,
although did not provide easy links.

Other than the graphic design and "eww chemicals" I'm not sure what the actual
problem is with the content.

And the three recommendations were actually all quite "natural" and
commonplace.

~~~
analognoise
Nonprofessionals basing how to give chemicals to their children is distressing
for the same reason the anti-vax movement is distressing: people think their
Google search is a substitute for medical care, and make treatment decisions
based on it.

Remember: Arsenic is natural. So is polio. The "natural" label is meant to
imply safe, and it is a rhetoric device used go convince others of the minimal
harm of their snakeoil.

------
neonate
[https://outline.com/gd7JNw](https://outline.com/gd7JNw)

~~~
conqrr
Thanks. We should have a bot that automatically does this for all paywalled
links.

~~~
scarejunba
And also link to The Pirate Bay for torrents of software?

~~~
whatshisface
Normal software vendors are not normally so bad that it is justified to
protect yourself in a way that hurts them. Granted, with the rise of built-in
spyware we might eventually have to start doing that. (Or, more realistically,
we could distribute patches.)

~~~
scarejunba
I’m responding specifically to the paywall concerns here. Clearly the person
I’m talking to is interested in not paying for content.

------
candiodari
Whilst there is very little evidence on how to increase intelligence, we know
a lot of things drastically _reduce_ intelligence. Generally, once that
happens, it cannot be undone:

1) malnutrition at a young age. Meaning under 3 years old or so. Malnutricion
during breast feeding or pregnancy is the most damaging. After a few years it
mostly stops mattering.

2) some chemical contaminants, most notably (and commonly) lead. There are
others (and worse ones), like Cadmium, but they're not very common at all.

3) genetic predisposition. Most pronounced, but far from the only effect, is
Down syndrome. Of course there are genetic problems, like epilepsy, that are
bad enough to make you an idiot.

4) _any_ contact whatsoever with child services has a strong negative effect.
If the child is removed from their parents, the effect magnifies dramatically.
But children treated do far worse than untreated children in the same
situation (and if you look at what happens in practice in such treatment, such
as removing the children from school for years, this cannot come as a great
surprise)

One almost-exception: voluntary treatment involving the mother (mostly _by_
the mother) has only a slight negative effect. Father does not seem to matter
if they're part of treatment. Still does not have a positive effect though.
(Absense of a father has a strong negative effect though. I would love to see
studies on if you see the same with mothers where the father is the primary
caregiver)

I would say that attempting to fix children, in whatever way, other than
advising the mother without any other option, is the negative. Children do
best when following through on whatever way they develop. Attempting to change
things is really bad.

5) drugs, and psychoactive medication are a strong negative, if taken over
longer periods (obviously for strong drugs, longer period can be months. For
most psychiatric drugs the period is something like a year)

6) lack of attention is a strong negative. Less so than attention by youth
services, but it is decisively not good.

That can mean by parents, by peers, by teachers, by ...

At this point though we're talking about things that will definitely leave
your IQ at over 90. It won't be catastrophic, whereas child services sometimes
produce from normal children that people that have problems like not being
able to count at age 17.

And then there are things that don't matter, but are widely perceived to
matter.

(All of these have the same caveat. Make them bad enough and of course it will
matter. If abuse means you don't survive, of course it will affect you. It
essentially never does)

1) getting abused does not influence intelligence (Concrete example: getting
scolded daily from age 3 by your mother for not cleaning your room because
she's drunk will not make you an idiot)

2) quality of life does not matter. If anything it has a slight negative
correlation: worse living conditions will actually make you (a little bit)
smarter. (again, there is a level where is most definitely does matter, but
that level is _very_ low)

~~~
johnwyles
> One almost-exception: voluntary treatment involving the mother (mostly by
> the mother) has only a slight negative effect. Father does not seem to
> matter if they're part of treatment. Still does not have a positive effect
> though. (Absense of a father has a strong negative effect though. I would
> love to see studies on if you see the same with mothers where the father is
> the primary caregiver)

Can you clarify #4? What "treatment" are you referring to? Chemical
dependency? Treatment in child services?

~~~
candiodari
Any psychiatric treatment. The exact name and even mechanism varies a lot
depending on location. For children, there's almost always legal threats
behind them though, especially where child services is involved.

The dirty secret of psychiatry is that it almost never works. By the standard
of placebo, "will this treatment work better than giving people a tictac 'that
should help'" 90% of psychiatric treatments are ineffective. Better in the
study means "reducing the chance of a future treatment being necessary"
(doesn't include one other option that probably should be tracked: suicide)

On children, the stats are worse, and there you generally see a worsening of
symptoms given treatment. Right now psychologists are trying to build a case
that child psychiatric treatments at least do not make things worse (because
there is a famous study showing that it does). When it comes to forced
treatment, there is no real doubt: it makes things much worse. The outcome
everyone wants to see is that treatment helps, but it just isn't what the data
shows.

And of course, there are plenty of examples of forced treatment causing
complete disasters, for example the famous French case of Solenn Poivre
d'Arvor. TLDR: Girl gets anorexia, gets admitted to youth services. Girl jumps
under metro after escaping what is effectively a prison, part of youth
services. She committed suicide so "she could be saved in a little bottle, to
be kept by her father, not thrown in the sea" (roughly translated, it was in
French of course).

The reason it's so famous is what happened next. Her dad was a news anchor,
who convinced then-president Chirac (and a lot of other rich French people,
Chirac's wife organizing a lot with the mother of this kid) to build a new
youth care facility with the following rules:

1) everybody, under any circumstances, is free to leave. They will not inform
the police or youth services unless asked.

2) under no circumstances will ever anyone's name or dossier be discussed or
passed to any other part of youth services

(one wonders just what French youth services pulled to make the mother of that
kid demand such rules and convince a LOT of people, including the wife of the
president, to make them official rules of the institution)

It is a pretty building called "Maison de Solenn" that tries to improve
treatment of anorexia disorders in France. It is also an incredible and very,
very public total failure of youth services, but the truth is this (youth
services forced treatment) happens in something like 70% of the cases of
suicide in France.

[https://histoire.inserm.fr/les-lieux/la-maison-de-
solenn](https://histoire.inserm.fr/les-lieux/la-maison-de-solenn)

~~~
tomcam
Wait, so Maison de Solenn, the new facility, is also a failure?

~~~
candiodari
That's a good question, it certainly seems to have some effect but I'm not
sure it's there yet.

1) it hasn't achieved the goals it set out for (firstly changing French youth
care, secondly achieving significant progress in treatment of anorexia). But
it's certainly trying. It's certainly getting the attention of policymakers
from youth care, they're just totally unwilling to change.

It's also hosting conventions for researchers into anorexia.

2) perhaps one could say that it has a small measure of success on the first
goal: it hasn't changed any other institutions but it seems to be trusted by
French youth tribunals, despite its rules. Tribunals will assign kids that
would otherwise be incarcerated to this, and they're free as a result.

As for outcomes I'm not sure. Despite their rules, this institution seems to
have managed to avoid fucking up bigtime (which cannot be said for child
services as a whole).

------
LouisSayers
On learning Music:

> music training may hone self-control, including focused attention and
> memorization.

And then later in the article:

> Raising IQ may require the kind of sustained involvement that comes with
> attending school, with all the practice and challenges it entails. “It’s not
> like you just go in for an hour of treatment a week. It’s a real lifestyle
> change,” he says.

Well... are the qualities you develop via learning an instrument not the same
qualities that are going to help in other areas of life?!

The other thing, is if you do a study on IQ and learning music, you shouldn’t
look only at taking lessons... you should look into the type of practice
people do, for how long they practice etc. Basically garbage in, garbage out.

For all the fancy math equations and language people use to put into these
studies, sometimes I think they sure are pretty dumb and short sighted.

------
sytelus
TLDR; Learning to play musical instruments or playing chess does NOT improve
IQ. Lively conversation with complex vocabulary, interactive reading with
child, memory games and not ending school prematurely helps.

------
madengr
Learning an instrument teaches perseverance, which is a large part of success.
I make sure my daughter practices her cello scales every night, which is the
part she does not like.

~~~
afarrell
As in, she likes the other bits about cello?

~~~
madengr
Yes.

