Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-hvd4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-24T18:39:46.539Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The High Incidence of Reading Disability in Twin Boys and Its Implications for Genetic Analyses

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

D.A. Hay ,
P.J. O'Brien ,
C.J. Johnston  and
M. Prior
D.A. Hay*
Affiliation:
Department of Genetics and Human Variation, Victoria, Australia
P.J. O'Brien
Affiliation:
Department of Genetics and Human Variation, Victoria, Australia
C.J. Johnston
Affiliation:
Department of Genetics and Human Variation, Victoria, Australia
M. Prior
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
*
Department of Genetics and Human Variation, La Trobe University, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In 1975 the Australian Council of Educational Research (ACER) conducted a nationwide survey of literacy and numeracy in 10- to 14-year olds. A total of 297 of the 12875 children involved were twins. By age 14, only 42% of the twin boys achieved adequate standards of literacy compared with 71% of single-born boys. The deficit in twin girls was much less and twins of both sexes were only moderately behind in numeracy. A survey of 9-13-year-old twin boys in the La Trobe Twin Study (LTS) produced similar results with 75% being below average in reading skills and 23% behind by 18 months or more, despite above average IQs. The ACER data are corroborated by teachers' reports obtained in the same survey, which indicate also how few of the twins with problems are receiving remediation and the high incidence of classroom problems in spelling and reading reversals. The pattern of mistakes twins make on specific items in the ACER survey can be explained as resulting either from specific cognitive deficits or from problems in concentration. The same factors influence performance on different tasks, so that literacy and numeracy are much more closely interrelated in twins than in singletons, and also correlate more with a measure of verbal intelligence. Implications for genetic analysis of scholastic achievement are examined, centering around the different factor structure of abilities in twins and common family environmental effects which are unique to twins.

Keywords

Reading disabilityLanguageGenetic factorsSchool achievement
Type
Twins and Mental Abilities
Information
Acta geneticae medicae et gemellologiae: twin research , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , April 1984 , pp. 223 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Twin Studies 1984

References

REFERENCES

1.Bourke, SF, Keeves, JP (1977): Australian Studies in School Performance Vol III. The Mastery of Literacy and Numeracy: Final Report. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.Google Scholar
2.Bourke, SF, Lewis, R (1976): Australian Studies in School Performance Vol II. Literacy and Numeracy in Australian Schools: Item Report. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.Google Scholar
3.Clark, P (1980): Language retardation in twins - The wider implications. Paper delivered at National Psychology Conference. Reprinted as Occasional Paper of the Psychology Department, University of Natal.Google Scholar
4.Hay, DA, Howie, PM (1980): Handedness and differences in birthweight of twins. Percept Mot Skills 51:666.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
5.Hay, DA, O'Brien, PJ (1981): The interaction of family attitudes and cognitive abilities in the La Trobe Study of Behavioral and Biological Development. In Gedda, L, Parisi, P, Nance, WE (eds): Twin Research 3: Part B. Intelligence, Personality and Development. New York: Alan R Liss, p 235–250.Google Scholar
6.Hay, DA, O'Brien, PJ 1983: The role of parental attitudes in the development of temperament in twins at home, school and in test situations. Acta Genet Med Gemellol 33:191–204.Google Scholar
7.Husen, T (1959): Psychological Twin Research. Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell.Google Scholar
8.Husen, T 1963: Intra-pair similarities in the school achievements of twins. Scand J Psychol 4:108–114.Google Scholar
9.Johnston, CJ, Prior, M, Hay, DA (1984): Prediction of reading disability in twin boys. Dev Med Child Neurol, in press.Google Scholar
10.Keeves, JP, Bourke, SF (1976): Australian Studies in School Performance. Vol I. Literacy and Numeracy in Australian Schools: A First Report. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.Google Scholar
11.Koch, HL (1966): Twins and Twin Relations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
12.Loehlin, JC, Nichols, RC (1976): Heredity, Environment and Personality: A Study of 850 Sets of Twins. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
13.Lytton, H (1980): Parent-Child Interaction: The Socialization Process Observed in Twin and Singleton Families. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
14.Martin, NG, Eaves, LJ (1977): The genetical analysis of covariance structure. Heredity 38: 79–95.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
15.Martin, NG, Wilson, SR (1982): Bias in the estimation of heritability from truncated samples of twins. Behav Genet 12:467–472.Google Scholar
16.Mittler, P 1970: Biological and social aspects of language development in twins. Dev Med Child Neurol 12:741–757.Google Scholar
17.Naylor, H 1980: Reading disability and lateral asymmetry: an information-processing analysis. Psychol Bull 87:531–545.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
18.Nie, NH, Hull, CH, Jenkins, JG, Steinbrenner, K, Bent, DH (1975): Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, 2nd Ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar
19.O'Brien, PJ, Hay, DA (1983): Is rearing twins different?The development and needs of multiple birth children and their families from birth to school age. Proceedings of the Second National Child Development Conference, Australia.Google Scholar
20.Record, RG, McKeown, T, Edwards, JH 1970: An investigation of the differences in measured intelligence between twins and single births. Ann Hum Genet 34:11–20.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
21.Richman, N, Stevenson, J, Graham, PJ (1982): Pre-school to School: A Behavioural Study. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
22.Rutter, M (1978): Prevalence and types of dyslexia. In Benton, AL, Pearl, D (eds): Dyslexia: An Appraisal of Current Knowledge. New York: Oxford UP, p 3–28.Google Scholar
23.Savage, JF, Mooney, JF (1979): Teaching Reading to Children with Special Needs. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
24.Savic, S (1980): How Twins Learn to Talk: A Study of the Speech Development of Twins from 1 to 3. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
25.Springer, SP, Searleman, A (1978): Hemispheric asymmetry of function in twins. In Nance, WE, Allen, G, Parisi, P (eds): Twin Research: Part A. Psychology and Methodology. New York: Alan R. Liss, p 57–62.Google Scholar
26.Watts, D, Lytton, H (1981): Twinship as handicap: fact or fiction? In Gedda, L, Parisi, P, Nance, WE (eds): Twin Research 3: Part B. Intelligence, Personality and Development. New York: Alan R. Liss, p 283–286.Google Scholar
27.Wilson, RS 1977: Twins and siblings: concordance for school-age mental development. Child Dev 48:211–216.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28.Zazzo, R (1978): Genesis and peculiarities of the personality of twins. In Nance, WE, Allen, G, Parisi, P (eds): Twin Research: Part A. Psychology and Methodology. New York: Alan R. Liss, p 1–11.Google Scholar