Heritability of high reading ability and its interaction with parental education.
Moderation of the level of genetic influence on children's high reading ability by environmental influences associated with parental education was explored in two independent samples of identical and fraternal twins from the United States and Great Britain. For both samples, the heritability of high reading performance increased significantly with lower levels of parental education. Thus, resilience (high reading ability despite lower environmental support) is more strongly influenced by genotype than is high reading ability with higher environmental support. This result provides a coherent account when considered alongside results of previous research showing that heritability for low reading ability decreased with lower levels of parental education.
Friend
Angela
A
Department of Psychology, University of Colorado At Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309, USA. angela.friend@colorado.edu
DeFries
John C
JC
Olson
Richard K
RK
Pennington
Bruce
B
Harlaar
Nicole
N
Byrne
Brian
B
Samuelsson
Stefan
S
Willcutt
Erik G
EG
Wadsworth
Sally J
SJ
Corley
Robin
R
Keenan
Janice M
JM
D001076:Aptitude; D002648:Child; D002672:Child, Gifted / Q000235:genetics*; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D004522:Educational Status; D004843:Epistasis, Genetic / Q000235:genetics; D005260:Female; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D008957:Models, Genetic; D010290:Parents; D010641:Phenotype; D011932:Reading; D012044:Regression Analysis; D012931:Social Environment; D014429:Twins, Dizygotic / Q000235:genetics*; D014430:Twins, Monozygotic / Q000235:genetics*; D006113:United Kingdom; D014481:United States; D014706:Verbal Learning