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Using Cholesky Decomposition to Explore Individual Differences in Longitudinal Relations between Reading Skills
Published on: September 17, 2019
Genetic covariance structure of reading, intelligence and memory in children
Marieke van Leeuwen1, Stéphanie M van den Berg, Jiska S Peper
1Department of Biological Psychology, VU University, Van der Boechorststraat 1, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands. M.van.leeuwen@psy.vu.nl
Abstract:
This study investigates the genetic relationship among reading performance, IQ, verbal and visuospatial working memory (WM) and short-term memory (STM) in a sample of 112, 9-year-old twin pairs and their older siblings. The relationship between reading performance and the other traits was explained by a common genetic factor for reading performance, IQ, WM and STM and a genetic factor that only influenced reading performance and verbal memory. Genetic variation explained 83% of the variation in reading performance; most of this genetic variance was explained by variation in IQ and memory performance. We hypothesize, based on these results, that children with reading problems possibly can be divided into three groups: (1) children low in IQ and with reading problems; (2) children with average IQ but a STM deficit and with reading problems; (3) children with low IQ and STM deficits; this group may experience more reading problems than the other two.
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