The relationship between IQ, social class and EEG findings in healthy children investigated by child-psychiatric methods

Abstract.— 222 children aged between 4.5 and 16.5 years. who were found to be normal by strict somato-neuro-logical criteria, were investigated by EEG and by child-psychiatric methods. Intelligence tests were performed according to WISC. The mean intelligence quotient amounted to 116.3± 12.4 in boys and 116.6± 14.1 in girls. Child-psychiatric findings deviating from the strictly normal occurred in 30 children significantly more frequently in social class III compared to I and 11. There was no relationship of significance between IQ and social group. No relevant relationship was found between IQ and psychiatric variables, nor between IQ and EEG-findings. The absence of the normal fixed relationship between IQ and social group is a notable finding, as is also the high average IQ. The strict normal criteria may have contributed to the exclusion of individuals with lesions and thus diminished factors having an inhibitory effect of the development of intelligence.