Barry J G, Yasin I, Bishop D V M
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, UK.
Genes Brain Behav. 2007 Feb;6(1):66-76. doi: 10.1111/j.1601-183X.2006.00232.x.
There is a strong genetic contribution to children's language and literacy impairments. The aim of this study was to determine which aspects of the phenotype are familial by comparing 34 parents of probands with language/literacy impairments and 33 parents of typically developing probands. The parents responded to questionnaires regarding previous history for language/reading impairment and participated in psychometric testing. The psychometric test battery consisted of tests assessing non-verbal IQ, short-term memory, articulation, receptive grammar, reading abilities and spelling. Self-report measures demonstrated a higher prevalence of language and literacy impairments in parents of affected probands (32%) compared with parents of unaffected probands (6%). The two groups of parents differed significantly in their performance on the non-word repetition, oromotor and digit span tasks. Non-word repetition gave the best discrimination between the parent groups even when the data from the parents who actually were impaired as ascertained by direct testing or self-report were removed from the analyses. This suggests that non-word repetition serves as a marker of a family risk for language impairment. The paper concludes with a discussion of issues associated with ascertainment of specific language impairment (SLI).
儿童的语言和读写障碍有很强的遗传因素。本研究的目的是通过比较34名患有语言/读写障碍先证者的父母和33名发育正常先证者的父母，来确定该表型的哪些方面具有家族性。父母们回答了有关语言/阅读障碍既往史的问卷，并参加了心理测量测试。心理测量测试组包括评估非语言智商、短期记忆、发音、接受性语法、阅读能力和拼写的测试。自我报告测量显示，与未受影响先证者的父母（6%）相比，受影响先证者的父母中语言和读写障碍的患病率更高（32%）。两组父母在非单词重复、口面部运动和数字广度任务中的表现存在显著差异。即使将通过直接测试或自我报告确定实际受损的父母的数据从分析中剔除，非单词重复在区分父母组方面表现最佳。这表明非单词重复可作为语言障碍家族风险的一个指标。本文最后讨论了与特定语言障碍（SLI）确诊相关的问题。
