Birth Order: Does it affect IQ, speech, behavior?

**debbystewart** · #1 09-09-2009, 01:47 AM

This article Birth Order: Fun to Debate, but How Important? tries to tackle these questions but finds no clear evidence.

“Too many parents are haunted by experiences both good and bad that they identify with their birth order,” said Dr. Peter A. Gorski, a professor of pediatrics, public health and psychiatry at the University of South Florida. And that might lead them to classify their own children according to birth order, he went on, which in turn can lead to a sense of identification or even rejection and to “self-fulfilling prophecies.”

Frank J. Sulloway, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of “Born to Rebel: Birth Order, Family Dynamics and Creative Lives” (Pantheon, 1996), points out that second-born children tend to be exposed to less language than eldest children. “The best environment to grow up in is basically two parents who are chattering away at you with fancy words,” Dr. Sulloway said.

He cited a huge and well-publicized Norwegian study, published in 2007, which found that eldest siblings’ I.Q.’s averaged about three points higher than their younger brothers’. (The study made use of Norwegian military records, so all the subjects were male.)

Those differences in verbal stimulation, like the differences in I.Q., are “relatively modest,” Dr. Sulloway continued, and unlikely to result in clinical speech delays. But in a child who is already vulnerable, a child who may be temperamentally less likely to evoke adults’ attention, or a child growing up in a less stimulating home — well, then, being the second child might be the added risk that makes the difference, he said.

Read the full article at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/08/health/08klas.html

**wordygirl** · #2 09-09-2009, 08:36 PM

I am a big believer in birth order. I just read Kevin Leman's book and it is sooo right on. I am the first born and I totally agree that we are smarter than our siblings

. I tried to think of all the people I knew, and they seem to line up as well. I certainly understand my parents better now!

**Toddler Mom** · #3 09-09-2009, 09:44 PM

I agree.. I'm the first born too and my language skills are way better than my younger sibling who didn't say her first word till she was two years old, plus it turned out she was dyslexic.. Don't know if that has anything to do with birth order?? I guess with the first child, parents are really keen and go on yapping while by the second one comes along, they've really exhausted their topics of child conversation :-)

**Healthy Momma** · #4 10-07-2009, 06:03 PM

hmmm I am not sure I agree with this. My son is an only child and his vocabulary is very extensive and he's very bright But his speech is not so great. He's got a speech impediment. I always thought the younger children learn how to speak better and faster because they want to be big so they try harder. At least that's my opinion.