Published on Brock University (http://brocku.ca)
Children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy score lower on reading tests
Children whose mothers smoked more than a pack of cigarettes a day score lower on reading tests than those of mothers who did not smoke during their pregnancies.
This is the major finding of research done by Brock University and the Yale School of Medicine published online in the latest issue of The Journal of Pediatrics.
Brock researcher Jan Frijters explains that, other factors being equal, a child of a mother who smoked will be on average seven places lower in a class of 31 children in reading accuracy and comprehension.
“Reading is key to almost all areas of learning,” says Frijters. “Difficulty in reading is going to have long-term - and possibly deep - impacts on a child’s intellectual development, socialization, self-confidence and possibly future aspirations.”
