Love and affection boosts a child's IQ level

December 21, 2007 12:48 IST

With the warmth of love, affection and care, a foster family can actually bring a difference to the life and intellect of a child.

According to a recent research, kids brought up in foster families have significantly higher IQ than their counterparts spending life in an orphanage.

The study conducted in Romania found that if children join foster families at an early age, they tend to do better. However, these kids generally have lower IQ's than the kids raised by their biological families, the New York Times reported.

Expressing opinion over the research, a psychologist at the Wisconsin University, Seth Pollak said, ''What makes this study important is that it gives objective data to say that if you're going to allow international adoptions, then it's a good idea to speed things up and get kids into families quickly.''

Comparing the effects of foster care with institutional child-rearing, the research took IQ tests and found that the foster children scored an average of 81 in comparison to 73 among the children brought up in an orphanage.

On the other hand, children grew up in their biological families had an average IQ of 109 at the same age.