ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the risk factors in greater detail, explaining what each factor means and showing their potential impact on both Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and achievement. It examines the correlation between a given risk factor and two different measures of a child's intelligence: the Peabody verbal IQ test and the Peabody Individual Achievement Tests test in mathematics. The chapter also discusses multivariate analyses where the effect of each factor is estimated controlling for all other factors. It provides the mechanisms that explain how cognitive stimulation affects a child's IQ. With respect to organization, the risk factors are classified according to their chronology and the associated feasibility of changing the risk factors by parents, prospective parents, or other child caregivers. Apart from parents' IQ, the other nine risk factors can be changed and optimized after a person has reached the teen years, but the timing of changes is critical.
