Geeky Children Come from Older Dads

Geeky Children Come from Older Dads
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Having children when you’re older is something many social norms seem to advise against. While for women the situation might be complicated because their child-bearing abilities diminish with age, as do their chances to give birth to healthy babies or even get pregnant at all. However, while men don’t face these issues, having an older dad has been linked to autism and schizophrenia in young children.

But a new research conducted by the Seaver Autism Center in partnership with King’s College London indicates that that’s not the case. In fact, having an older dad is actually a factor that determines a child’s intelligence and focus levels later on. Simply said, older dads have higher chances of having geeky children.

Nowadays, being geeky is no longer an insult. In fact, it’s turned a full one-eighty and being a geek now equals being cool. It’s good to see that we as a society have grown past that nasty stage when we looked down on intelligence, and we now regard it as something undoubtedly positive. But what does that have to do with having an older that? Well, according to the aforementioned study, it has everything to do with that!

The children that participated in the study all received a personal ‘geekiness index’, which is basically a measurement of their wit, intelligence, focus and also overall social awkwardness. And guess what, children with older dads scored the highest here. However, the study also indicates a worrying possibility, namely that geekiness and autism might be caused by the same genes. In other words, being a geek could actually be a mild form of autism.

Either way, this research did manage to shed some positive light on the issue, although there is still much to be discussed here. We’ll just have to wait for more studies to be conducted.

 


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Anna is an avid blogger with an educational background in medicine and mental health. She is a generalist with many other interests including nutrition, women's health, astronomy and photography. In her free time from work and writing, Anna enjoys nature walks, reading, and listening to jazz and classical music.

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