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About Half of Kids’ Learning Ability Is In Their DNA
You may think you’re better at reading than you are at math (or vice versa), but new research suggests you’re probably equally good (or bad) at both. The reason: The genes that determine a person’s ability to tackle one subject influence their aptitude at the other, accounting for about half of a person’s overall ability.
The study, published this week in the journal Nature Communications, used nearly 1,500 pairs of 12-year-old twins to tease apart the effects of genetic inheritance and environmental variables on math and reading ability. Twin studies provide a clever way of assessing the balance of nature versus nurture.
“Twins are like a natural experiment,” said Robert Plomin, a psychologist at Kings College London who worked on the study. Identical twins share 100 percent of their DNA and fraternal twins share 50 percent (on average), but all siblings presumably experience similar degrees of parental attentiveness, economic opportunity and so on. Different pairs of twins, in contrast, grow up in unique environments.
The researchers administered a set of math and verbal tests to the children and then compared the performance of different sets of twins. They found that the twins’ scores — no matter if they were high or low — were twice as similar among pairs of identical twins as among pairs of fraternal twins. The results indicated that approximately half the children’s math and reading ability stemmed from their genetic makeup.
A complementary analysis of unrelated kids corroborated this conclusion — strangers with equivalent academic abilities shared genetic similarities.
What’s more, the genes responsible for math and reading ability appear to be numerous and interconnected, not specifically targeted toward one set of skills. These so-called “generalist genes” act in concert to determine a child’s aptitude across multiple disciplines.
“If you found genes for reading,” Plomin said, “you have over a 50 percent chance that those same genes would influence math.”
This would suggest individually tailored educational approaches could help, in which students could learn at different rates using different techniques, potentially assisted by the growing role of technology in the classroom.
Plomin also points out that genes don’t predetermine performance. Appetite is just as important as aptitude, he said.
The study results show that attitudes about learning are out of date and need to change, Bates said.
“Just as we no longer blame mothers for schizophrenia, we should be humble when blaming schools and parents for not every child learning as quickly as we’d desire,” he said. “The implications, I think, are that children really do differ at very deep levels in how easily they learn.”
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