where you born in autumn?? if yes , then you have to read this article. apparently you are a genius after all and if you want to have kids in the future u have to plan for the right time for the pregnancy.
TIMES ONLINE
August 01, 2005
Geniuses are born in autumn
Emma Burns
October and November are the best birth months if your child is to live long and prosper
CHOOSING a brainy partner, eating oily fish and listening to Mozart during pregnancy — the lengths we go to just to ensure that our babies have the brightest of starts in life. But the secret to having a genius baby, or at least a child who wins scholarships, could be much simpler: planning the time of conception carefully. For it seems that if you want to give your baby the best chance of a long, happy and successful life, the ideal time to conceive (assuming an average-length pregnancy) is between January 15 and March 9.
This would ensure that your baby is born in October or November — but any time in autumn would give your child an advantage. Currently, more babies in England and Wales are born in July than in any other month (followed by October, then May). Research suggests that these July babies are likely to be at a significant disadvantage when they start school. Studies of children’s exam performance have repeatedly shown that those born between May 1 and August 31 do less well than their classmates; those born between September 1 and December 31 do best of all.
This can be seen all the way through childhood, from 7 to 16. Lambeth local education authority, which has monitored children’s performance by birth date for the first three years at school, has found that by Year 2, autumn-born children outperform summer ones by at least 15 per cent in maths, 13 per cent in reading and 15 per cent in writing. Those born between January 1 and April 30 close the gap a bit, doing better by 7 per cent in maths, 5 per cent in reading and 9 per cent in writing, but the difference is still marked.
Meanwhile, the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) has discovered that summer-born children (between the ages of 6 and 12) performed significantly less well at reading than the autumn-borns at 6, 8 and 10. At 12 the gap, though still there, was smaller.
Being autumn-born can also improve children’s chances of winning scholarships to independent schools, and academic accolades once there, says Susan Lee-Kelland, a chartered educational psychologist of 20 years’ experience: “There is a high preponderance of autumn-born children among those winning scholarships. When you look at which children win the end-of-year subject prizes in independent schools, that, too, tends to be dominated by September and October birthdays until they are about 16.â€
Season of birth also seems to affect GCSE achievement, with those born in September about 20 per cent more likely to be awarded an A* or A than those born in August. Autumn-born children are more likely to go into higher education than their classmates — five times more likely than those born in August, according to research for the Higher Education Funding Council for England.
Why should being born in the autumn convey such an advantage? About 40 years ago, there was a theory that infections caught by mothers-to-be during the autumn impaired foetal brain development during the vital first three months, so that by the time babies were born in the summer they were already disadvantaged.
However, Caroline Sharp, principal research officer for NFER, who has spent years examining the effect of birth dates, dismisses the evidence as unconvincing. She is not persuaded, either, that it is to do with the amount of time that children spend at school. In some areas, autumn-born children start in September, spring-borns in January and summer-borns in April, so they would go into Year 1 having had three, two and one term of school respectively: “Most children now start school at the same time as a response to this issue because people thought that the differences were all to do with length of schooling,†she says. “But actually there’s evidence that autumn-born children are still doing better.â€
She puts it down simply to the fact that children born in the autumn will be the oldest in their year, because English and Welsh schools use an academic year beginning on September 1 and ending on August 31 when allocating children to a year group.
“With infant schoolchildren particularly, it makes a big difference developmentally,†she says. “Children mature at different rates but, in broad terms, an older child will be able to do more and so will be likely to get more positive reinforcement and be given more responsibility than a younger one. It may be that younger ones lose confidence, particularly once they get into Year 1 and the more formal curriculum begins. If you are not doing something when everyone around you is, it is only natural to get a little disheartened.â€
This would appear to be confirmed by a study at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London, which found that, at both primary and secondary school level, children who were the youngest in their year were more likely to suffer from mental health problems than their peers — possibly because of the pressure of trying to keep up.
It is not just in the classroom that the autumn effect can be seen. When the Football Association ran a school of excellence at Lilleshall National Sports Centre, most of the promising youngsters recruited were autumn-born. Meanwhile, a study by the Association of Football Statisticians found that 40 per cent of the Englishmen playing in Premiership clubs in the past 13 years were born in September, October and November, only 15 per cent between May and July. As Caroline Sharp explains: “
Their distinguishing feature was not just physical ability but strategic thinking, an awareness of what’s going on in the game, which is to do with maturity.â€
If autumn is best, then October and November seem to be the best months of all. A December birth was linked with obesity and concomitant risk of heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, according to a Southampton University study. Meanwhile, September-born children are apparently at heightened risk of allergies, including asthma, because of their mothers’ exposure to pollen in the last 12 weeks of pregnancy; they also run the chance of being born prematurely and ending up exceedingly young for their year after all.
Babies born in October and November have the greatest life expectancy, best chance of good health and lowest risk of multiple sclerosis and arthritis, according to research carried out in Germany, Norway and America. The downside is that they almost certainly will not be aware of their good fortune. Those born between March and August have been found to generally consider themselves much luckier than those born at other times of the year.
What is more, Caroline Sharp points out that the advantage conveyed by being born in the autumn, while real, is not worth fretting about. “For any one child it will be one thing among lots of others, the others of which are much more important,†she says. “Entitlement to free school meals, prior attainment, gender, special educational needs and fluency in English all have a stronger effect on achievement than season of birth.â€
And, says Susan Lee-Kelland, children outgrow any advantage or disadvantage. “By 18, it has all changed — they have been through puberty, they have matured and the younger ones have caught up.â€
