HOME-ENVIRONMENT AND COGNITIVE-ABILITY OF 7-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN IN THE COLORADO ADOPTION PROJECT - GENETIC AND ENVIRONMENTAL ETIOLOGIES

Family environment may be related to childhood cognitive abilities either directly through environmental transmission or indirectly through correlations with parental genotypes. Using the methodology of quantitative behavioral genetics, the magnitude of such effects can be determined. In the present analysis, these relations were investigated using measures of the home environment obtained from infancy through 7 years of age and WISC-R full scale IQ at age 7 on a sample of 153 adoptive and 136 nonadoptive families. Some aspects of the home environment, including activity-recreation orientation measured by the Moos FES scales and organized environment measured by the Caldwell HOME inventory, were found to have significant direct environmental effects on 7-year-old cognitive ability. However, ostensible environment-development relations for most measures were due to indirect genetic mediation.