Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums GT Research Teens' brains, faster and smarter

http://www.healthcanal.com/mental-health-behavior/21187-Minds-Get-Quicker-Teenagers-Get-Smarter.html

Adolescents become smarter because they become mentally quicker.

That is the conclusion of a new study by a group of psychologists at University of Texas at San Antonio. �Our findings make intuitive sense,� says lead author Thomas Coyle, who conducted the study with David Pillow, Anissa Snyder, and Peter Kochunov. But this is the first time psychologists have been able to confirm this important connection. The study appears in the forthcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association for Psychological Science.

�Our research was based on two well-known findings, Coyle continues. �The first is that performance on intelligence tests increases during adolescence. The second is that processing speed��the brain taking in and using new stimuli or information��as measured by tests of mental speed also increases during adolescence.�

To find the relationship between these two phenomena, the UTSA psychologists analyzed the results of 12 diverse intelligence and mental speed tests administered to 6,969 adolescents (ages 13 to 17) in the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Intelligence was measured by performance on cognitive tests of diverse abilities, such as vocabulary knowledge, math facts, and mechanical comprehension. Mental speed showed up in timed tests of computing and coding�matching digits and words and other arithmetic tasks.

In both of these categories, the researchers could see that the older teenagers did better and worked faster than the younger ones. Then, running the data in numerous ways, they discovered that the measured increase of intelligence could be accounted for almost entirely by the increase in mental speed.

<end of excerpt>

Processing speed is an important part of intelligence.

Here is the abstract of the paper:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110927124645.htm
Processing Speed Mediates the Development of General Intelligence (g) in Adolescence
Thomas R. Coyle1&#8659;,
David R. Pillow1,
Anissa C. Snyder1 and
Peter Kochunov2
+ Author Affiliations
1Department of Psychology, University of Texas at San Antonio
2Maryland Psychiatric Research Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine
Thomas R. Coyle, Department of Psychology, University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, San Antonio, TX 78249 E-mail: thomas.coyle@utsa.edu

Abstract
In the research reported here, we examined whether processing speed mediates the development of general intelligence (g) in adolescence. Using the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, a battery of 12 diverse cognitive tests, we assessed processing speed and g in a large sample of 13- to 17-year-olds obtained from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 6,969). The direct effect of age on g was small compared with the total effect of age on g, which was almost fully mediated through speed. The results suggest that increases in g in adolescence can be attributed to increases in mental speed.

Oh great ... something I can look forward to in 6 years .. and even smarter PG child. Thankfully, he will be in college when he's 13 .....

I'm wondering if that is a drawback for those of us with grade accelerated children b/c they won't have hit the speed boost yet when they are dealing with high school material. Since my grade accelerated one had slower processing speed when she was tested at a younger age, any speed increase would be good, though. Hopefully it will happen before she's out of high school (assuming that this speed boost doesn't happen all in that 16-17 age range!).

So, IQ increases with the kid's age?

Which means that a 6 year old will test at a lower IQ than his future 16 year-old self?

IQ scores won't increase because the future 16 year old will be judged against other 16 year olds, who have improved right along with him. But his raw scores on sections of the test will improve.

I guess I can live with that. Worrisome to me that most of the raw score increase isn't in things like vocabulary or other crystalized knowledge areas, though.

Smiles,
Grinity

But as I understand it processing speed is heavily influenced not just be speed of thinking but by visual motor co-ordination, perfectionism, etc. Both of these are areas that kids can make big gains in between 6 and 16 without their 'g' necessarily changing much.

This is why speed drills are important in one's area of study. They leave the mind time to work on the hard parts.