The latent structure of emerging cognitive abilities: An infant twin study

Abstract

It is well known that genetic factors account for up to 70% of variability in cognition from childhood to adulthood. However, less is known about the first year of life. This study investigated the etiological factors influencing individual variability in different domains of emerging cognitive and motor abilities in early infancy, and to what extent genetic and environmental influences are unique or shared across different domains. We compared multivariate twin models built on scores from the five scales of the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) in a community sample of monozygotic and dizygotic twins at 5 months of age (n=567). The results indicated a hierarchical etiological structure whereby a general genetic latent factor accounted for 54% of variance underlying the different domains of emerging cognitive and motor abilities (A=0.54, confidence interval CI=[0; 0.82]). We also found additional genetic influences that were specific to early motor and language development. Unlike previous findings on older children, we did not find significant influences of shared environment on the shared factor (C=0, CI=[0, 0.57]), or any specific scale. Furthermore, influences of unique environment, which include measurement error, were moderate and statistically significant (E=0.46, CI=0.18; 0.81]). This study provides strong evidence for a unitary hierarchical structure across different domains of emerging cognition. Evidence that a single common etiological factor, which we term infant g, contributes to a range of different abilities supports the view that in young infants, intrinsic and general neurodevelopmental processes are key drivers of observable behavioural differences in specific domains.