Drinking Study Links Early Development to Alcohol; Children With Better Mental and Verbal Ability Start Drinking Earlier

Better mental and verbal ability in children has been linked to early drinking in adulthood in a new study.

A new study published in Alcoholism magazine finds that children who had better mental and verbal abilities than their peers are most likely to start drinking alcohol earlier than their peers when they grow up. Children with better verbal and mental ability so drink more alcohol consumption than children develop their abilities later.

The leader author of the study, Antti Latvala, who is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Helsinki in Finland, followed 3,000 twins whose abilities developed at different paces, where one twin learned how to speak faster than the than the other.

Latvala and his colleagues conducted interviews with the parents of twins. They asked the parents to identify the age when the twins started speaking. They also took into account the age the twins began reading, and other details about their language skills. The researchers asked the twins to give accounts of their drinking habits and any alcohol-related problems they might have had growing up.

Birth order and birth weight were also factored in to the study for a more accurate analysis. The research found that children with better mental and verbal abilities said they drank more during adulthood especially when they turned 18. The twins reported that they also have more friends who drink. This might mean that peer association affects their early drinking habits. The study also suggested that children who developed their mental and verbal abilities later had lesser friends.

Latvala told TIME "People have this impression that intelligence is somehow related to being introverted and bookwormish. But if you look at these large studies they definitely find this association with sensation-seeking and seeking different kind of experiences. [They're] trying to learn new things. It could be related to the nature of intelligence."

The results don’t mean that the children who develop faster have more signs of alcohol addiction but that children with higher intelligence are more willing to experiment new things.

The online journal Alcoholism published the study in their Sept. 13.