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Updated: Apr 4, 2026

Using Cholesky Decomposition to Explore Individual Differences in Longitudinal Relations between Reading Skills
Published on: September 17, 2019
Overlapping genetic and child-specific nonshared environmental influences on listening comprehension, reading
Victoria J Schenker1, Stephen A Petrill1
1Department of Psychology, The Ohio State University, 239 Psychology Building, 1835 Neil Ave., Columbus, OH 43220, USA.
Abstract:
This study investigated the genetic and environmental influences on observed associations between listening comprehension, reading motivation, and reading comprehension. Univariate and multivariate quantitative genetic models were conducted in a sample of 284 pairs of twins at a mean age of 9.81 years. Genetic and nonshared environmental factors accounted for statistically significant variance in listening and reading comprehension, and nonshared environmental factors accounted for variance in reading motivation. Furthermore, listening comprehension demonstrated unique genetic and nonshared environmental influences but also had overlapping genetic influences with reading comprehension. Reading motivation and reading comprehension each had unique and overlapping nonshared environmental contributions. Therefore, listening comprehension appears to be related to reading primarily due to genetic factors whereas motivation appears to affect reading via child-specific, nonshared environmental effects.
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