The role of the Children of Twins design in elucidating causal relations between parent characteristics and child outcomes
The role of the Children of Twins design in elucidating causal relations between parent characteristics and child outcomes
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DOI：
10.1111/1469-7610.00196
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发表时间：
2003-11-01
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Emery, RE
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
D'Onofrio, BM;Turkheimer, EN;Emery, RE
背景资料：使用典型样本确定父母措施和儿童结果之间的因果关系受到无法解释所有混淆（环境和遗传）的限制。本文讨论了双胞胎的孩子（COT）的设计，以突出特定environment.Methods的作用的力量：一个新的分析模型，这有助于区分和量化的环境和遗传过程之间的关联家庭层面的风险因素和儿童的调整。为了说明COT的设计，在怀孕期间吸烟和儿童出生体重（BW）之间的关系进行检查，在一个样本的女性双胞胎和他们的孩子从挪威和美国。结果：结果表明，在怀孕期间吸烟的遗传因素的影响。然而，双胞胎的孩子模型支持声称，在怀孕期间吸烟有直接的环境影响BW和遗传和共享的环境混淆不能占association.Conclusions：双胞胎的孩子设计的优势和局限性的评估和与其他研究策略的比较表明，该设计在发展心理学和精神病理学的研究中发挥着独特的作用。最后，作者描述了如何方法的进步和未来的应用设计将提供额外的洞察力的因果关系的过程，儿童的调整环境刺激。
Background: Determination of causal connections between parental measures and child outcomes using typical samples is limited by the inability to account for all confounds, both environmental and genetic. This paper discusses the strength of the Children of Twins (COT) design to highlight the role of specific environments.Methods: A new analytical model is presented which helps differentiate and quantify the environmental and genetic processes underlying associations between family-level risk factors and child adjustment. In order to illustrate the COT design, the relation between smoking during pregnancy and child birth weight (BW) is examined in a sample of female twins and their children from Norway and the United States.Results: The results illustrate that smoking during pregnancy is influenced by genetic factors. However, the Children of Twins model supports the claim that smoking during pregnancy has a direct environmental influence on BW and that genetic and shared environmental confounds cannot account for the association.Conclusions: An assessment of the strengths and limitations of the Children of Twins design and a comparison with other research strategies suggest that the design plays a unique role in the study of developmental psychology and psychopathology. Finally, the authors describe how methodological advances and future applications of the design will provide additional insight into the causal processes underlying children's adjustment to environmental stimuli.