Journal of North Khorasan

Background & Objective: Intelligence is generally defined as an individual talent to perceive world and meet his expectations. Numerous studies have been done on the association between intelligence quotient and socio-economic factors. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of these factors on IQ levels in children.

Materials & Methods: The current research was a case-control in which 111 female students aged 9-11 years with low and boundary intelligence quotients as the case group and 111 with high and average intelligence quotients as the control group were randomly chosen from 12 public girly primary schools in Bandar Anzali, Iran. To determine the demographic features, mothers were invited to an interview to complete the socio-economic questionnaire. Wechsler’s revised intelligence test was used to determine each student's intelligence quotient. The acquired data were analyzed in chi-square 2, student t-test, Univariate and multivariate logistic regression, SPSS (16.0 version), and Stata 11 SE.

Results: intelligence quotients had a significant association with job status and educational level of parents, economic level and the number of employed people in the family. But had no significant association with mother and child's weight and height and also, fathers' employment, owning a private house and  number of children in family.

Conclusion: Based on this study, parents' educational level was the most important socio-economic factor on children's IQ levels. So that , the odds of having children with a low intelligence quotient for parents who have no academic education is respectively 2 and 3.5 times more than parents who have academic education.

keywords: socio-economic factors, intelligence quotient, primary school students