Raising the IQ: The Ramey and Haskins study

Abstract

The Ramey and Haskins intervention experiment succeeded in producing IQ gains at three years of age averaging about one standard deviation in young children who were selected for being at risk for subnormal intellectual development. The study is examined in terms of its consistency with other findings, the heritability of IQ, the g aspect of IQ, the simplex pattern of longitudinal interage mental test score correlations, mother-child IQ correlations, and criteria for establishing educationally and socially significant gains in intelligence defined as g rather than as a score on a particular test. Narrow transfer of training from cognitive intervention techniques to IQ test performance in early childhood, rather than enhancement of the g factor itself, is hypothesized as a cause of the typical fadeout of early IQ gains in later childhood.