Order of Birth, Parent-Age, and Intelligence
REVIEWS
- Author:
Thurstone
and iiichard Jenkins. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931.
The book falls into two parts. Part I is an analysis of case records of the Institute for Juvenile Research of Chicago; Professor Thurstone is its author. Part II is a review of the experimental literature on order of birth, age of parents, and related problems; for this part Dr Jenkins is chiefly responsible. The large number of cases available in the records of the Institute?more than ten thousand?made possible a study of the relation between birth order and intelligence, parent-age and intelligence, within the limits of sibship. There were, for example, 382 families whose first born and second born children had been examined by the Institute. The number of cases available for the first four birth orders runs from about one hundred to three hundred and eighty-two. Add to this the thorough-going statistical treatment of results in which Professor Thurstone is facile princeps and nothing further need be said to emphasize the importance and value of the contribution made by Part I of the volume.
When limited to siblings the results appear to show a definite tendency of intelligence to increase with the order of birth as far as the eighth born child. A check on the findings has been carried out by Miss Steckel of Sioux City, Iowa, in the testing of a normal population of twenty thousand school children, cases being drawn from 2,712 families, the study being limited to siblings. The results confirm those of the study of the Institute children, the mean Intelligence Quotient of which was about eighty. It would appear that the conclusion of this study is statistically valid, whatever the interpretation of the facts may be.
Eleven other studies are contained in this first part. Among the results of especial interest to clinical psychologists who are interested in behavior problems may be cited two: that the first born are more likely to be problem children than are their brothers and sisters, and that the sex of the next older or next younger child apparently influences behavior adjustment. The results of the study are succinctly summarized.
Part II is a veritable vademecum for those who are interested in clinical and statistical studies and Dr Jenkins, by his patient scientific labors, has placed all such students in his debt. This part also has a most excellent summary. Eighty percent of the results of the studies bear on order of birth, and age of parents in relation to intelligence. The volume is provided with an extensive bibliography.
In view of a statement in the Foreword of this volume, it would take more grace than we have at our command to forebear stating that the Psychological Clinic of the University of Pennsylvania has been investigating bc94 havior problems since 189G. Among the earliest cases there is a fair proportion of children brought to the clinic for moral delinquency. The Psychological Clinic was founded March 15, 1907, eleven years after the institution of the Clinic, “as a journal for the study of the treatment of mental retardation and deviation.” At that time there was not another clinic or institute dealing with behavior problems in the United States. Arthur Phillips
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