Mental and motor development in infant twins

Used the Bayley Scales of Infant Development to evaluate the mental and motor development of 261 pairs of twins at 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 24 mo. of age. Results show that with a small allowance for prematurity, the twins displayed essentially the same rate of progression in development as singletons. T...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental psychology 1972-11, Vol.7 (3), p.277-287
Main Authors: Wilson, Ronald S, Harpring, Eileen B
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Body Weight
Heterozygotic Twins
Human
Infant Development
Longitudinal Studies
Monozygotic Twins
Motor Development
Socioeconomic Status
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Summary:Used the Bayley Scales of Infant Development to evaluate the mental and motor development of 261 pairs of twins at 3, 6, 9, 12, 18 and 24 mo. of age. Results show that with a small allowance for prematurity, the twins displayed essentially the same rate of progression in development as singletons. The correlations between developmental scores obtained at successive ages were moderate and declined in size as the ages spread further apart. At each age, however, the twins showed high within-pair correlations for mental and motor development and also displayed high concordance for the rate of gain across ages. The correlations for monozygotic twins approached the reliability of the test itself, and most were significantly higher than the correlations for dizygotic twins. Infant mental and motor development was temporarily retarded by low birth weight, but was not affected by the socioeconomic status of the home. It is concluded that while prenatal anomalies or an impoverished home environment may retard development, in the majority of cases the environmental conditions fall within the limits of sufficiency that permit the genetic blueprint to determine the course of infant development. (19 ref.)
ISSN:0012-1649
1939-0599
DOI:10.1037/h0033357