As little as two teen-fight injuries for boys and one teen-fight injury for girls can result in loss of IQ equivalent to missing an entire year of school.
Researchers from Florida State University conducted a study to determine a link between physical injuries and cognitive decline among teenagers.
Researchers looked at data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health collected between 1994 and 2002 to examine whether serious fighting-related injuries resulted in significant decreases in IQ. The data comprised of information of 20,000 middle and high school students who were tracked into adulthood through subsequent waves of data collection. Each student was questioned on topics like personality traits, social relationships and the frequency of specific behaviors.
The authors of the study found that two teen-fight injuries for boys and one teen-fight injury for girls can result in loss of IQ equivalent to missing an entire year of school. Researchers previously established that missing a single year of school leads to a loss of 2 to 4 IQ points. Each fight related injury resulted in the loss of 1.62 IQ points for boys, and 3.02 IQ points for girls.
Over 4 percent of high school boys sustain at least one fighting-related injury. Though boys tend to sustain more fight-related injuries than girls, the consequences are more severe in the female gender. One of the reasons for this, researchers revealed, is because men have a higher ability to withstand physical trauma.
The findings of this study are very important as loss in IQ results in lower educational achievement and occupational performance, mental disorders, behavioral problems and even longevity.
Joseph A. Schwartz, a doctoral student who conducted the study with Professor Kevin Beaver in FSU's College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, revealed that the consequences could be even more severe if there are head injuries. He calls on school authorities to develop policies that can reduce the number of injuries sustained through bullying, fighting or contact sports.
"We tend to focus on factors that may result in increases in intelligence over time, but examining the factors that result in decreases may be just as important," he said in a press release. "The first step in correcting a problem is understanding its underlying causes. By knowing that fighting-related injuries result in a significant decrease in intelligence, we can begin to develop programs and protocols aimed at effective intervention."
