This study aimed at assessing the putative association between the fingertip patterns of right and left digits II and intellectual functioning.

The study involves the evaluation of dermatoglyphic patterns on right and left digits II in 342 adolescents (144 talented ones, 102 normal individuals and 96 subjects with learning disabilities) from the Shahrekord city in Iran. Comparisons between the frequencies of fingerprint patterns of each digit were made on the basis of two groups at a time employing Chi-square test.

The most frequent dermatoglyphic pattern was whorl on both fingers in the 3 groups. An observation of right digit II revealed that the normal adolescents in comparison to the talented ones had a greater number of the whorl patterns (P=0.02), while the latter had more ulnar loops than the former (P=0.09). Group comprising those with learning disabilities had more ulnar loops than the group composed of the normal adolescents (P=0.09), and there was a predominance of radial loops among the talented subjects as opposed to those among the individuals with learning disabilities (P=0.002). There was no significant association in the relative frequencies of different finger patterns on left digit II between the groups (P>0.05).

Our results support an association between some dermatoglyphic patterns observed on right digit II with IQ level in adolescents. Further researches, needless to say, especially employing various quantitative dermatoglyphic indices and larger-sized samples are recommended.