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The Genetics of Children's Oral Reading Performance
Author(s) -
Reynolds Chandra A.,
Hewitt John K.,
Erickson Marilyn T.,
Silberg Judy L.,
Rutter Michael,
Simonoff Emily,
Meyer Joanne,
Eaves Lindon J.
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7610.1996.tb01423.x
Subject(s) - psychology , reading (process) , twin study , developmental psychology , variation (astronomy) , behavioural genetics , population , monozygotic twin , etiology , reading disability , genetics , heritability , dyslexia , demography , biology , psychiatry , linguistics , philosophy , physics , sociology , astrophysics
Measures of reading achievement and verbal ability have been shown to be heritable. Additionally, recent evidence has been suggestive of a major gene effect on reading disability and for problem reading in a sample of normal readers. We report on the etiology of individual differences in oral reading performance, the Slosson Oral Reading Test (SORT), for which biometrical analyses have not been reported in the literature previously. Oral reading performance was measured in a large population‐based sample of twins of the Virginia Twin Study of Adolescent Behavioral Development. Biometrical analyses of the SORT suggested that, in both mates and females. 69% of the phenotypic variation was due to heritable influences and 13”v of the variation dm‐ to shared environmental effects. While the relative importance of genetic and environmental influences is equivalent for males and females, males showed greater phenotypic variability than females.