Marital problems linked to children's cognitive problems
FRIDAY, MARCH 29, 2013 08:08 AM

If married parents' love is on the rocks, they may want to be careful how they behave around their children. The results of an IQ test for kids could reveal that whatever marital conflict children are exposed to is affecting the development of their cognitive ability.

This is the conclusion researchers from Auburn University and the Catholic University of America arrived at in a recent study. Using a sample of 251 children who lived in two-parent homes, the researchers set out to discover what level of marital conflict these youths were exposed to at 8 years of age and how it affected them.

The researchers found that children with low respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), a heartbeat variation that has been linked to people's ability to regulate emotion and attention, at age 8 tended to have less adaptive RSA just one year later. These individuals also developed mentally and intellectually at a slower rate.

"The findings provide further evidence that stress affects the development of the body's stress response systems that help regulate attention, and that how these systems work is tied to the development of cognitive ability," said J. Benjamin Hinnant, assistant professor of psychology at the Catholic University of America, as well as one of the study's researchers.