Abstract
The author’s plenary address at the 3rd International Association for the Scientific Study of Intellectual Disabilities-Europe Conference in Rome, Italy (October 2010), provided a retrospective overview of a longitudinal study conducted with a cohort of pre-teens (11 and 13 years of age) residing in Warsaw, Poland, in the 1970s. The intent was to examine, over an extended period of years, the relationship between social origin and measured intelligence (IQ), the role that IQ and other psycho-social factors play as predictors of social and economic status in adulthood, and the stability of IQ. The question posed by the “Warsaw Studies” was whether, given the virtual absence of educational, health service, and community distinctions (Warsaw in the 1970s was an ideal laboratory for such a sociological undertaking), would Warsaw schoolchildren still show the usual association between parental occupation and offspring intellectual functioning? The results from a series of follow-up studies indicate that the IQ score at age 13 could be viewed as a relatively good indicator for future life outcomes, defined in terms of attained education, occupational status, and material well being. Dramatic differences in this attainment between the groups of respondents with high and low IQ scores attest to this conclusion. Smaller, yet still significant, differences between talented teenagers and their counterparts from the two control groups who apparently did not have the high IQ advantage also support the thesis that IQ matters much for life success. The findings of the “Warsaw Studies” have implications for the life course and economic conditions of children with intellectual disabilities from disadvantaged backgrounds.