ArticleChild development
Does learning to read improve intelligence? A longitudinal multivariate analysis in identical twins from age 7 to 16.
Article in Child development. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 4 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 4 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Cognitive skills in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes: a scoping review and meta-analysis.BMJ open diabetes research & care · 2026Pooled it
- Meta-analytic relations between personality and cognitive ability.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Pooled it
- How Much Does Education Improve Intelligence? A Meta-Analysis.Psychological science · 2018Pooled it
- Large Cross-National Differences in Gene × Socioeconomic Status Interaction on Intelligence.Psychological science · 2016Pooled it
- Non-cognitive skills mediate education-related polygenic score associations with academic achievement across development.Nature communications · 2026Article
- How are children's perceptions of the home environment associated with a general psychopathology factor across childhood?Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- Article
- Children's cognitive performance and suicide risk through middle adulthood.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2023Article
- Computer-Based Development of Reading Skills to Reduce Dropout in Uncertain Times.Journal of Intelligence · 2022Article
- Developmental co-occurrence of psychopathology dimensions in childhood.JCPP advances · 2022Article
- Children's knowledge of superordinate words predicts subsequent inductive reasoning.Journal of experimental child psychology · 2022Article
- The Negative Religiousness-IQ Nexus is a Jensen Effect on Individual-Level Data: A Refutation of Dutton et al.'s 'The Myth of the Stupid Believer'.Journal of religion and health · 2022Article
- Genome-wide association study reveals new insights into the heritability and genetic correlates of developmental dyslexia.Molecular psychiatry · 2021Article
- Early Childhood Reading in Rural China and Obstacles to Caregiver Investment in Young Children: A Mixed-Methods Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
- Thalamus is a common locus of reading, arithmetic, and IQ: Analysis of local intrinsic functional properties.Brain and language · 2020Article
- Cognitive ability and education: How behavioural genetic research has advanced our knowledge and understanding of their association.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2020Review
- Improved Intelligence, Literacy and Mathematic Skills Following School-Based Intervention for Children in Foster Care.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
- Picture This: A Review of Research Relating to Narrative Processing by Moving Image Versus Language.Frontiers in psychology · 2019Review
- Genetic Structure of IQ, Phonemic Decoding Skill, and Academic Achievement.Frontiers in genetics · 2019Article
- Monozygotic twin differences in school performance are stable and systematic.Developmental science · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Evidence from twin studies points to substantial environmental influences on intelligence, but the specifics of this influence are unclear. This study examined one developmental process that potentially causes intelligence differences: learning to read. In 1,890 twin pairs tested at 7, 9, 10, 12, and 16 years, a cross-lagged monozygotic-differences design was used to test for associations of earlier within-pair reading ability differences with subsequent intelligence differences. The results showed several such associations, which were not explained by differences in reading exposure and were not restricted to verbal cognitive domains. The study highlights the potentially important influence of reading ability, driven by the nonshared environment, on intellectual development and raises theoretical questions about the mechanism of this influence.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.