What is it about?
Twins are at an elevated risk to be born prematurely and at low birthweight. Consequently, twins score well below the population mean on early cognitive tests. We show that twins "recover" cognitively by making rapid gains toward the population mean across toddlerhood and are average by middle-childhood. Individual differences in how far twins are behind in infancy, how quickly they catch up, and how much growth they make are related to environmental factors. Gestational age was strongly associated with early cognitive abilities. However, twins born prematurely caught up to their full-term peers as well as the population mean. Twins reared in wealthier homes began recovering at an earlier age and ultimately had substantially higher scores than twins reared in poorer homes by adolescence.
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Why is it important?
This study demonstrates the typical pattern of cognitive recovery in twins and suggests that environmental factors (as opposed to genetic factors) are most strongly related to individual differences in the recovery process.
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This page is a summary of: Genetic and environmental correlates of the nonlinear recovery of cognitive ability in Twins., Developmental Psychology, March 2022, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/dev0001305.
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