A new, controlled study out of Romania shows children taken from orphanages and put into caring foster families exhibit dramatic increases -- on the order of 15 points -- in IQ as compared to those left in the group homes. And children raised in biological homes saw a 15-20 point advantage over those in foster homes. Timing mattered, too. For every month children spent in the orphanage, their gains after transferral decreased. Presumably, this will be interpreted as evidence that changing children's home environment actually reconstructs their genetic makeup, rather than that IQ is mutable and tremendously reliant on environment.
