Autism spectrum disorder is associated with sensory processing alterations, such as sensory hyper- and hypo-responsiveness. Twin studies are scarce in this field, but they are necessary in order to disentangle the genetic and environmental contributions to this association. Furthermore, it is unclear how different neurodevelopmental/psychiatric…

Purpose: This study examines the effect of sibling size on children's educational attainment in Indonesia. Design/Approach/Methods: To establish causality, it exploits the exogenous variation of sibling size caused by twin birth in families. Findings: Results of instrumental variable (IV) estimation support a traditional wisdom of quantity-quality…

The purpose of this study was to test the directionality of influence between reading comprehension (RC) and print exposure (PE), thereby estimating genetic and environmental effects of this relation. The sample consisted of 910 twins in fourth through ninth grades (M[subscript age] = 12.33 years, SD = 1.41) from the Florida Twin Project on…

To examine whether implicit social cognition is developmentally stable or variable, this study investigated three primary types of implicit social cognition (self-esteem, the gender-science stereotype, and racial attitude) across 2 years in a sample of Chinese adolescents and emerging adults (N = 608; 56% female; 15- to 27-year-olds). Rank-order…

Alterations in social cognition (SC) are hypothesized to underlie social communication and interaction challenges in autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The aetiological underpinnings driving this association remain unclear. We examined SC in 196 twins with ASD, other neurodevelopmental disorders or typical development using the naturalistic Movie for…

Current definitions of specific learning disability (SLD) identify a heterogeneous population that includes individuals with weaknesses in reading, math, or writing, and these academic difficulties often co-occur in many of the same individuals. The Colorado Learning Disabilities Research Center (CLDRC) is an interdisciplinary, multisite research…

With increasing numbers of children being diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) attention has been drawn to these children's physical health. We aimed to identify the prevalence of defined physical problems (epilepsy, migraine, asthma, cancer, diabetes, psoriasis, lactose intolerance, celiac disease, diarrhea, constipation, daytime…

Classroom-level influences on literacy skills in kindergarten through Grade 2, and on literacy and numeracy skills in Grades 3, 5, 7, and 9, were examined by comparing the similarity of twins who shared or did not share classrooms with each other. We analyzed two samples using structural equation modeling adapted for twin data. The first, Study 1,…

Purpose: There is a need for well-defined language phenotypes suitable for adolescents in twin studies and other large-scale research projects. Rice, Hoffman, and Wexler (2009) have developed a grammatical judgment measure as a clinical marker of language impairment, which has an extended developmental range to adolescence. Method: We conducted…

Purpose: This study examines the expressive language and speech of twins, relative to singletons, at 3 and 5 years, with the aim of determining if a twinning effect occurs during this developmental period. The possibility of twins outgrowing a twinning effect was investigated. Method: A weighted population-based sample of 185 twins and 1,309…

A risk to develop a learning disability has been shown to run in families. Having a positive family history of learning disability seems to account for mean differences in achievement outcomes (reading, math) in that children with a positive family history score significantly lower compared to their peers with no such family history. However, the…

School performance is one of the most stable and heritable psychological characteristics. Notwithstanding, monozygotic twins (MZ), who have identical genotypes, differ in school performance. These MZ differences result from non-shared environments that do not contribute to the similarity within twin pairs. Because to date few non-shared…

This study examined the mediating role of emotional availability in the relation between parent positive personality and toddler problem behavior. The sample comprised 654 twins at 12 and 32 months. Primary caregivers (>95% mothers) completed six measures indexing parent positive personality assessed at 12 months, and emotional availability and…

Alterations in social cognition are hypothesized to underlie social communication challenges in autism spectrum disorder. However, the etiologic underpinnings driving this association, as well as the impact of other psychiatric conditions on the association, remain unclear. Using a co-twin control design, we examined n = 308 twins (mean age =…

Obesity is an important global health problem. Although obesity is not directly related to access to health care or constrained by resource deprivation, overweight status is predominantly found in poor, less-educated populations. This paper seeks to identify the causal role of schooling in affecting obesity among children and adolescents, using…