Christopher Micaela E, Keenan Janice M, Hulslander Jacqueline, DeFries John C, Miyake Akira, Wadsworth Sally J, Willcutt Erik, Pennington Bruce, Olson Richard K
Department of Psychology, University of Colorado Boulder.
Department of Psychology, University of Denver.
J Exp Psychol Gen. 2016 Apr;145(4):451-66. doi: 10.1037/xge0000146.
Although previous research has shown cognitive skills to be important predictors of reading ability in children, the respective roles for genetic and environmental influences on these relations is an open question. The present study explored the genetic and environmental etiologies underlying the relations between selected executive functions and cognitive abilities (working memory, inhibition, processing speed, and naming speed) with 3 components of reading ability (word reading, reading comprehension, and listening comprehension). Twin pairs drawn from the Colorado Front Range (n = 676; 224 monozygotic pairs; 452 dizygotic pairs) between the ages of 8 and 16 (M = 11.11) were assessed on multiple measures of each cognitive and reading-related skill. Each cognitive and reading-related skill was modeled as a latent variable, and behavioral genetic analyses estimated the portions of phenotypic variance on each latent variable due to genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental influences. The covariance between the cognitive skills and reading-related skills was driven primarily by genetic influences. The cognitive skills also shared large amounts of genetic variance, as did the reading-related skills. The common cognitive genetic variance was highly correlated with the common reading genetic variance, suggesting that genetic influences involved in general cognitive processing are also important for reading ability. Skill-specific genetic variance in working memory and processing speed also predicted components of reading ability. Taken together, the present study supports a genetic association between children's cognitive ability and reading ability.
尽管先前的研究表明认知技能是儿童阅读能力的重要预测指标，但基因和环境对这些关系的各自影响仍是一个悬而未决的问题。本研究探讨了特定执行功能与认知能力（工作记忆、抑制、处理速度和命名速度）与阅读能力的三个组成部分（单词阅读、阅读理解和听力理解）之间关系的遗传和环境病因。从科罗拉多前缘地区选取了年龄在8至16岁（平均年龄11.11岁）的双胞胎对（n = 676；224对同卵双胞胎；452对异卵双胞胎），对每项认知和阅读相关技能进行了多项测量。每项认知和阅读相关技能都被建模为一个潜在变量，行为遗传学分析估计了每个潜在变量上由于基因、共享环境和非共享环境影响而产生的表型方差部分。认知技能与阅读相关技能之间的协方差主要由基因影响驱动。认知技能之间也共享大量的基因方差，阅读相关技能也是如此。共同的认知基因方差与共同的阅读基因方差高度相关，这表明参与一般认知加工的基因影响对阅读能力也很重要。工作记忆和处理速度中特定技能的基因方差也预测了阅读能力的组成部分。综上所述，本研究支持儿童认知能力与阅读能力之间的基因关联。
