In the study, Florida State University criminology professor Kevin Beaver examined a nationally representative sample of youth alongside a sample of adopted children from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health).
The study analyzed parenting behaviors and whether they had an effect on verbal intelligence as measured by the Picture Vocabulary Test (PVT). Upon review he found evidence that suggests IQ is not the result of parental socialization.
The subject of how much influence parents have on intelligence has long been debated. Some research that shows parents who socialize their children in accordance with certain principles like reading with them often or having nightly family dinners, have children who are smarter than children whose parents do not do those things. There is also an argument that it’s not a parental socialization effect, but that intelligence is passed down from parent to children genetically, not socially.
Results from this study shows that there was no association between parenting and the child’s intelligence later in life once genetic influences are accounted for. In previous research, it looks as though parenting is having an effect on child intelligence, but in reality the parents who are more intelligent are doing these things and it is masking the genetic transformation of intelligence to their children.
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Source material from Psych Central