According to this ABC News story, a new research study says that spanking was associated with a decline in childhood IQ.
An excerpt:
The IQs of 2- to 4-year-olds who received regular spankings from their parents dropped by more than 5 points over four years, compared with kids who were not spanked.
"The practical side of this is that paediatricians and child psychologists need to start doing what none of them do now, and say, 'Never spank under any circumstances,'" says Murray Straus, a sociologist at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, who led the new study along with Mallie Paschall at the Prevention Research Center in Berkeley, California.
Kevin Butler has been covering education for more than five years at the Press-Telegram. Previously he was a reporter at the Los Angeles Independent weeklies and in the Washington, D.C., bureau of Investor's Business Daily. A native of Houston, Butler graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor's in economics and government. 
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