Heritability of Verbal and Performance Intelligence in a Pediatric Longitudinal Sample

The longitudinal stability of IQ is well-documented as is its increasing heritability with age. In a longitudinal twin study, we addressed the question to what extent heritability and stability differ for full scale (FSIQ), verbal (VIQ), and performance IQ (PIQ) in childhood (age 9–11 years), and early adolescence (age 12–14 years). Genetic and environmental influences and correlations over time were evaluated in an extended twin design, including Dutch twins and their siblings. Intelligence was measured by the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for children — Third version (WISC III). Heritability in childhood was 34% for FSIQ, 37% for VIQ, and 64% for PIQ, and increased up to 65%, 51%, and 72% in early adolescence. The influence of common environment decreased between childhood and early adolescence from explaining 43% of the phenotypic variance for FSIQ to 18% and from 42% for VIQ to 26%. For PIQ common environmental influences did not play a role, either in childhood or in early adolescence. The stability in FSIQ and VIQ across the 3-year interval (rp) was .72 for both measures and was explained by genetic and common environmental correlations across time (FSIQ, rg = .96, rc = 1.0; VIQ, rg =.78, rc = 1.0). Stability of PIQ (rp =.56) was lower and was explained by genetic influences (rg = .90). These results confirm the robust findings of increased heritability of general cognitive abilities during the transition from childhood to adolescence. Interestingly, results for PIQ differ from those for FSIQ and VIQ, in that no significant contribution of environment shared by siblings from the same family was detected.

[1]  G. Dahlberg,et al.  Genetics of human populations. , 1948, Advances in genetics.

[2]  D. Falconer,et al.  Introduction to Quantitative Genetics. , 1962 .

[3]  R Plomin,et al.  Genotype-environment interaction and correlation in the analysis of human behavior. , 1977, Psychological bulletin.

[4]  S. Scarr,et al.  How people make their own environments: a theory of genotype greater than environment effects. , 1983, Child development.

[5]  D. Falconer.  Introduction to quantitative genetics. 1. ed. , 1984 .

[6]  R. Plomin,et al.  Genetic Stability of Cognitive Development from Childhood to Adulthood. , 1987 .

[7]  D. Boomsma,et al.  Genetic influences on childhood IQ in 5‐ and 7‐year‐old Dutch twins , 1997 .

[8]  J. Flint,et al.  The genetic basis of cognition. , 1999, Brain : a journal of neurology.

[9]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Brain development during childhood and adolescence: a longitudinal MRI study , 1999, Nature Neuroscience.

[10]  J. Brooks-Gunn,et al.  The neighborhoods they live in: the effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent outcomes. , 2000, Psychological bulletin.

[11]  Dorret I. Boomsma,et al.  A Note on the Statistical Power in Extended Twin Designs , 2000, Behavior genetics.

[12]  Ian J. Deary,et al.  The Stability of Individual Differences in Mental Ability from Childhood to Old Age: Follow-up of the 1932 Scottish Mental Survey , 2000 .

[13]  D. Posthuma,et al.  Perceptual Speed and IQ Are Associated Through Common Genetic Factors , 2001, Behavior genetics.

[14]  R. Kahn,et al.  Quantitative genetic modeling of variation in human brain morphology. , 2001, Cerebral cortex.

[15]  R. Kahn,et al.  The association between brain volume and intelligence is of genetic origin , 2002, Nature Neuroscience.

[16]  Handleiding WISC-IIINL , 2002 .

[17]  P. Vernon,et al.  Application of Hierarchical Genetic Models to Raven and WAIS Subtests: A Dutch Twin Study , 2002, Behavior genetics.

[18]  D I Boomsma,et al.  Genetic and Environmental Influences on the Development of Intelligence , 2002, Behavior genetics.

[19]  R. Plomin,et al.  Phenotypic "g" Early in Life: On the Etiology of General Cognitive Ability in a Large Population Sample of Twin Children Aged 2-4 Years. , 2003 .

[20]  Robert Plomin,et al.  Development genetic analysis of general cognitive ability from 1 to 12 years in a sample of adoptees, biological siblings, and twins , 2003 .

[21]  C. Reynolds,et al.  Multivariate analyses of the profile stability of intelligence tests: high for IQs, low to very low for subtest analyses. , 2003, Archives of clinical neuropsychology : the official journal of the National Academy of Neuropsychologists.

[22]  D. Boomsma,et al.  Heritability of attention problems in children: longitudinal results from a study of twins, age 3 to 12. , 2004, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[23]  E. J. van den Oord,et al.  Genetic and environmental mechanisms underlying stability and change in problem behaviors at ages 3, 7, 10, and 12. , 2004, Developmental psychology.

[24]  D. Boomsma,et al.  Genetic and environmental influences on Anxious/Depression during childhood: a study from the Netherlands Twin Register , 2005, Genes, brain, and behavior.

[25]  Danielle Posthuma,et al.  A genomewide scan for intelligence identifies quantitative trait loci on 2q and 6p. , 2005, American journal of human genetics.

[26]  Danielle Posthuma,et al.  A longitudinal twin study on IQ, executive functioning, and attention problems during childhood and early adolescence. , 2006, Acta neurologica Belgica.

[27]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Intellectual ability and cortical development in children and adolescents , 2006, Nature.

[28]  Danielle Posthuma,et al.  Netherlands Twin Register: From Twins to Twin Families , 2006, Twin Research and Human Genetics.

[29]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Genetic Contributions to Human Brain Morphology and Intelligence , 2006, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[30]  Essi Viding,et al.  A pediatric twin study of brain morphometry. , 2006, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[31]  R. Kahn,et al.  Genetic influences on human brain structure: A review of brain imaging studies in twins , 2007, Human brain mapping.

[32]  J. Giedd,et al.  Review of Twin and Family Studies on Neuroanatomic Phenotypes and Typical Neurodevelopment , 2007, Twin Research and Human Genetics.

[33]  R. Zajonc,et al.  The Confluence Model: Birth Order as a Within-Family or Between-Family Dynamic? , 2007, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[34]  D. Boomsma,et al.  Longitudinal genetic study of verbal and nonverbal IQ from early childhood to young adulthood , 2007 .

[35]  Kenneth S Kendler,et al.  Age-Related Changes in Heritability of Behavioral Phenotypes Over Adolescence and Young Adulthood: A Meta-Analysis , 2007, Twin Research and Human Genetics.

[36]  Dorret I. Boomsma,et al.  A twin-family study of general IQ , 2008 .

[37]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Cerebral White Matter in Early Puberty Is Associated with Luteinizing Hormone Concentrations , 2022 .

[38]  D. Boomsma,et al.  Intelligence and birth order in boys and girls , 2008 .

[39]  D. Boomsma,et al.  Genetic and Environmental Influences on the Stability of Withdrawn Behavior in Children: A Longitudinal, Multi-informant Twin Study , 2022 .

[40]  R. Plomin,et al.  g in middle childhood: Moderate genetic and shared environmental influence using diverse measures of general cognitive ability at 7, 9 and 10 years in a large population sample of twins , 2008 .

[41]  Judy H. Cho,et al.  Finding the missing heritability of complex diseases , 2009, Nature.

[42]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Heritability of regional and global brain structure at the onset of puberty: A magnetic resonance imaging study in 9‐year‐old twin pairs , 2009, Human brain mapping.

[43]  R. Kahn,et al.  A genetic analysis of brain volumes and IQ in children , 2009 .

[44]  I. Deary,et al.  Genetic foundations of human intelligence , 2009, Human Genetics.

[45]  Corwin Boake,et al.  Genes Determine Stability and the Environment Determines Change in Cognitive Ability During 35 Years of Adulthood , 2009, Psychological science.

[46]  R. Plomin,et al.  Dramatic Increase in Heritability of Cognitive Development from Early to Middle Childhood , 2009, Psychological science.

[47]  R. Kahn,et al.  Efficiency of Functional Brain Networks and Intellectual Performance , 2009, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[48]  I. Deary,et al.  A Functional Polymorphism under Positive Evolutionary Selection in ADRB2 is Associated with Human Intelligence with Opposite Effects in the Young and the Elderly , 2009, Behavior genetics.

[49]  N. Martin,et al.  Heritability of Head Size in Dutch and Australian Twin Families at Ages 0–50 Years , 2010, Twin Research and Human Genetics.

[50]  Dorret I. Boomsma,et al.  Heritability of DTI and MTR in nine-year-old children , 2010, NeuroImage.

[51]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Lateralized genetic and environmental influences on human brain morphology of 8-year-old twins , 2010, NeuroImage.

[52]  J. Giedd,et al.  A Bivariate Twin Study of Regional Brain Volumes and Verbal and Nonverbal Intellectual Skills During Childhood and Adolescence , 2010, Behavior genetics.

[53]  Martin Styner,et al.  r Human Brain Mapping 000:000–000 (2010) r Genetic and Environmental Contributions to Neonatal Brain Structure: A Twin Study* , 2022 .

[54]  N. Martin,et al.  The heritability of general cognitive ability increases linearly from childhood to young adulthood , 2010, Molecular Psychiatry.

[55]  Alan C. Evans,et al.  Brain Plasticity and Intellectual Ability Are Influenced by Shared Genes , 2010, The Journal of Neuroscience.

[56]  Heritability of Anxious-Depressive and Withdrawn Behavior , 2010 .

[57]  B. Pennington,et al.  Genetic Covariation Between Brain Volumes and IQ, Reading Performance, and Processing Speed , 2010, Behavior genetics.

[58]  D. Boomsma,et al.  Heritability of anxious-depressive and withdrawn behavior: age-related changes during adolescence. , 2010, Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.