Older Dads: The Truth Smarts?

Has the secret for the "dumb and dumbering of America" been found? A glance at numerous stories in the media in the past few days would suggest there's been a eureka moment: Blame it on those 50+ year old dads.

A study in the most recent PLOS Medicine has found that children born to older fathers scored lower on I.Q. tests than children of younger fathers at 8 months old, 4 years old and 7 years old. Reports on this study were inevitably accompanied by reference to studies linking older dads to children on the autism spectrum (all to be read with a few caveats). From the New York Times:

“I think there has been a bit of a cultural bias against even looking at this issue, but finally people are willing to entertain this,” said Dr. Dolores Malaspina, a professor of psychiatry at New York University Medical Center who has written studies on the risk of schizophrenia among children of older fathers as well as the lower nonverbal I.Q. scores found among teenagers with older fathers.

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As the mother of an autistic son---still cringing to hear the name of Bruno Bettelheim---I always feel wary towards studies that link congenital disabilities in a child to something in particular about a child's parents. What will follow: Societal injunctions that individuals above a certain age not procreate, so great is the fear of having a child who scores lower on I.Q. tests and other "cognitive measure"? From Science Daily:

Given the trend towards older maternal and paternal ages in the developing world, policy-makers may want to consider promoting an awareness of the risks to children that this study associates with delayed fatherhood.

As far as what I.Q. measures and what they don't: It's been found that, when different intelligence test was used than the standard test (which focuses on language and social interactions) to evaluate autistic children, many of the children were found to be significantly more intelligent than assumed.

Smarts is in the eye of the beholder.......