Genetic Effects on Children's Conversational Language Use

Autor/inn/en	DeThorne, Laura S.; Petrill, Stephen A.; Hart, Sara A.; Channell, Ron W.; Campbell, Rebecca J.; Deater-Deckard, Kirby; Thompson, Lee Anne; Vanderbergh, David J.
Titel	Genetic Effects on Children's Conversational Language Use
Quelle	In: Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 51 (2008) 2, S.423-435 (13 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1092-4388
DOI	10.1044/1092-4388(2008/031)
Schlagwörter	Twins; Standardized Tests; Genetics; Environmental Influences; Language Skills; Individual Differences; Language Usage; Multivariate Analysis; Correlation; Schemata (Cognition) + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Twin; Zwilling; Standadised tests; Standardisierter Test; Humangenetik; Environmental influence; Umwelteinfluss; Language skill; Sprachkompetenz; Individueller Unterschied; Sprachgebrauch; Multivariate Analyse; Korrelation; Cognition; Schema; Kognition
Abstract	Purpose: The present study examined the extent of genetic and environmental influences on individual differences in children's conversational language use. Method: Behavioral genetic analyses focused on conversational measures and 2 standardized tests from 380 twins (M = 7.13 years) during the 2nd year of the Western Reserve Reading Project (S. A. Petrill, K. Deater-Deckard, L. A. Thompson, L. S. DeThorne, & C. Schatschneider, 2006) Multivariate analyses using latent factors were conducted to examine the extent of genetic overlap and specificity between conversational and formalized language. Results: Multivariate analyses revealed a heritability of 0.70 for the conversational language factor and 0.45 for the formal language factor, with a significant genetic correlation of 0.37 between the two factors. Specific genetic effects were also significant for the conversational factor. Conclusions: The current study indicated that over half of the variance in children's conversational language skills can be accounted for by genetic effects with no evidence of significant shared environmental influence. This finding casts an alternative lens on past studies that have attributed differences in children's spontaneous language use to differences in environmental language exposure. In addition, multivariate results generally support the context-dependent construction of language knowledge, as suggested by the theory of activity and situated cognition (J. S. Brown, A. Collins, & P. Duguid, 1989; T. A. Ukrainetz, 1998), but also indicate some degree of overlap between language use in conversational and formalized assessment contexts. (Author).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10