Specific parental traits are linked to distinct cognitive skills in gifted children

A recent study published in the Journal of Intelligence provides evidence that different aspects of parents’ intelligence, education, and personality may influence the cognitive abilities of gifted children in distinct ways. The findings support the idea that giftedness in children is influenced by both inherited traits and environmental factors, although the nature of these influences appears to vary by cognitive domain.

While previous research has shown that parental education tends to predict children’s IQ, less is known about how parental intelligence and personality traits relate to cognitive outcomes in gifted children. Most studies have considered these influences separately and often focused only on full-scale IQ, rather than specific cognitive domains. In the new study, the researchers set out to examine whether particular characteristics of parents—including their cognitive abilities based on a well-established psychological framework and their personality traits—could predict the distinct intellectual strengths observed in gifted children.

The researchers were especially interested in the Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model of intelligence, which breaks cognitive functioning into several broad areas such as verbal comprehension, working memory, and processing speed. They also examined personality traits using the Five-Factor Model, which includes dimensions like conscientiousness, agreeableness, and openness to experience. By studying these variables together, the researchers aimed to clarify how parental characteristics may influence different aspects of their children’s cognitive profiles, rather than general intelligence alone.

The study involved 65 gifted children between the ages of 6 and 14, each with a full-scale IQ score of at least 120, which qualifies as “moderately gifted” according to several international guidelines. The sample included 21 girls and 44 boys, with an average age of roughly 10 years. Giftedness was determined using the WISC-IV, a widely used standardized intelligence test for children.

Where possible, both parents of each child were also assessed. A total of 65 mothers and 61 fathers completed cognitive tests based on the WAIS-IV, the adult version of the Wechsler intelligence scale. These tests allowed the researchers to assess five broad cognitive abilities derived from the CHC model: comprehension-knowledge, fluid reasoning, visual processing, short-term memory, and processing speed. Parents also completed the Big Five Inventory, a standard self-report questionnaire measuring personality traits.

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The researchers focused on four key cognitive indices in children: verbal comprehension, perceptual reasoning, working memory, and processing speed. Using both simple correlations and multivariate statistical modeling, the study explored how these cognitive abilities in children were related to their parents’ intelligence, education levels, and personality characteristics.

The findings revealed several domain-specific associations between parental traits and children’s cognitive scores. One of the most consistent results was the link between a mother’s processing speed and her child’s performance in the same area. Across different statistical models, maternal processing speed was the strongest predictor of children’s processing speed scores. This supports earlier research suggesting that this aspect of cognition may be passed down or influenced through shared environments and interactions.

Fathers’ short-term memory also showed a meaningful connection to children’s working memory scores. This association remained significant in both simple and multivariate analyses, suggesting that paternal cognitive abilities may influence how well children can retain and manipulate information over short periods.

Maternal education played a more specific role. In early analyses, it was associated with children’s verbal comprehension. However, in more complex models that accounted for additional parental traits, the strongest link was between maternal education and children’s perceptual reasoning, a cognitive domain involving the ability to understand and work with visual patterns and abstract relationships. This shift implies that maternal education may influence more than just language-based abilities and could contribute to broader intellectual development.

There was also some evidence that personality traits had an influence, although these effects tended to be weaker than cognitive and educational variables. Mothers who scored higher on conscientiousness—a trait associated with organization and responsibility—had children with higher perceptual reasoning scores.

In fathers, agreeableness was modestly associated with children’s perceptual reasoning in initial analyses, and with children’s working memory in the final, more complex models. These results suggest that parental personality may have a subtle but measurable impact on children’s intellectual functioning, possibly by shaping the emotional and behavioral environment at home.

Other traits and variables did not emerge as strong or consistent predictors. For example, neither maternal nor paternal verbal abilities were clearly linked to children’s verbal comprehension once other factors were controlled. Additionally, most personality traits did not show significant associations with children’s cognitive scores, with the exceptions being conscientiousness in mothers (linked to perceptual reasoning) and agreeableness in fathers (linked to working memory).

One important nuance in the findings was the different roles played by mothers and fathers. In general, mothers’ characteristics were more strongly related to children’s verbal and processing speed scores, while fathers’ traits showed clearer links to working memory. This pattern may reflect both genetic inheritance and differences in parenting roles and time spent with children, although the study did not directly test those explanations.

The study had some limitations that should be kept in mind. The sample size was relatively small, and some families contributed more than one child, which may have introduced statistical biases. While the researchers used appropriate statistical techniques to address this, they acknowledged that a larger, more diverse sample would provide stronger evidence.

Another limitation was the lack of a comparison group. Because all participating children were classified as gifted, the study cannot determine whether these parental influences are unique to gifted children or apply to children more broadly. Including non-gifted peers in future research would help clarify whether these patterns are specific to gifted populations or reflect general trends in cognitive development.

The wide age range of the children also presents a challenge. Cognitive abilities develop rapidly during childhood and adolescence, and the influence of parental traits may differ depending on the child’s developmental stage. Longitudinal research would be better suited to track these changes over time and identify when particular parental influences are most important.

Finally, although the study examined personality traits and cognitive abilities, it did not include other potentially relevant factors such as parenting style, family routines, or the home learning environment. These contextual variables could help explain how parental characteristics translate into cognitive outcomes for children and may be worth exploring in future studies.

Further research with larger, more diverse samples and broader measures of the home environment will be needed to confirm these findings and clarify the mechanisms involved. In the meantime, the study provides a more detailed picture of how parental traits may contribute to gifted children’s intellectual strengths and highlights the importance of considering both biological and environmental factors in understanding giftedness.

The study, “The Role of Parental Education, Intelligence, and Personality on the Cognitive Abilities of Gifted Children,” was authored by Lina Pezzuti, Morena Farese, James Dawe, and Marco Lauriola.