

July 14, 2014
Larkmead School. Credit: CC-BY-SA-2.5,2.0,1.0




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 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 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."

That's not to say specialized brain circuits don't exist for different tasks, said Timothy Bates, a psychologist at the University of Edinburgh who was not involved in Tuesday's study.

"If those 'squiggles on a page' the young child encounters are math or prose, different brain systems, with different genes, are involved in learning to decode them," he said. The new study just illustrates that these genes build on a more general foundation of learning ability, he said.


"You might think you're a little less good at math, but compared to everybody in the world, you're pretty good at math," he said.


"We don't want to pit nature vs. nurture," Plomin said. "But for parents who still think kids are a blob of clay that you mold to be what you want them to be, I hope this data - and there's tons of other data like this - will convince people to recognize and respect individual differences that are genetically driven."

He sees parallels to obesity: People can no more control a genetic predisposition that causes them to struggle with arithmetic than they can control an inherited tendency to put on pounds. That doesn't mean nothing can be done to bring those students up to par - it just might take more effort.


Finland has decided to do "whatever it takes" to bring every child up to a minimum level of literacy and numeracy needed to survive in the modern world. In practice, this has meant reducing class sizes, trying alternative learning approaches, and spending hours outside of class with any student who needs it.

Plomin also points out that genes don't predetermine performance. Appetite is just as important as aptitude, he said.

"The brilliant mathematician - that's all they do for decades, they just think math and work on ," Plomin said. "It's not like it comes to them with a flash of inspiration. It's really a long, long process of thinking about these things."


"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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1 / 5 (1) Jul 15, 2014
The new study just illustrates that these genes build on a more general foundation of learning ability, Bates said.

Here is the "more general foundation of learning ability":

Dovetails perfectly into Finland's approach.

One of the most known of all German sayings is:
Aus Schade wird man klug - can be taken literally here to be true.

The best appropriate translation here for this is:
"Wise after the event"
Here the "event" is the DNA damage and subsequent repair.
So from a molecular scale those that underwent the greatest damage and subsequent repair are the smartest. The "genetic predisposition" is the factor that determines where in the brain this damage and repair occurs - and the assertion the reading and math can not occur independently.


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