Cognitive tempo in children and their parents.

An adoption study was conducted to determine if cognitive tempo (as characterized by errors and latencies on the Matching Familiar Figures Test) is more similar between parents and their biological children or between parents and their adopted children. Zero-order correlations between parents and children were not significant (regardless of familial relationship), but the results of canonical correlations for mean of parents' scores with those of biological and adopted children respectively were consonant with hypothesized values, suggesting a degree of heritability exists. A slight trend for parents' latency to be consistently related to their biological children's latency was noted, but no such trend was present for errors. The heritability of latency versus errors in cognitive tempo is discussed.