Scientists predict academic achievement from DNA alone

[lostinblue 1,989]

Scientists predict academic achievement from DNA alone

DNA alone provides a much better prediction of academic achievement than gender or even 'grit', a personality trait thought to measure perseverance and passion for long-term goals.

Published today in Molecular Psychiatry, these findings mark a 'tipping point' in predicting academic achievement and could help with identifying children who are at greater risk of having learning difficulties.

Previous research on twin studies has found that 60 per cent of differences between individuals' educational achievement are due to differences in DNA.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/07/160719091622.htm

We have debated on how "Asian Tiger moms " are responsible for their children excelling in school . Perhaps Asians have the "DNA" for academic achievement more so than perhaps white folks ? In the future will we use DNA to determine where to place students in a class room setting . .

[smilesammich 10,727]

Saskia Selzam, first author from the MRC Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) Centre at King's College London, said: 'We believe that, very soon, polygenic scores will be used to identify individuals who are at greater risk of having learning difficulties.

'Through polygenic scoring, we found that almost 10 per cent of the differences between children's achievement is due to DNA alone. 10 per cent is a long way from 100 per cent but it is a lot better than we usually do in predicting behaviour. For instance, when we think about differences between boys and girls in maths, gender explains around one per cent of the variance. Another example is 'grit', which describes the perseverance of an individual, and only predicts around five per cent of the variance in educational achievement.'

Professor Robert Plomin, senior author of the study, also from the MRC SGDP Centre at King's College London, added: 'We are at a tipping point for predicting individuals' educational strengths and weaknesses from their DNA.

'Polygenic scores could be used to give us information about whether a child may develop learning problems later on, and these details could guide additional support that is tailored to a child's individual needs. We believe personalised support of this nature could help to prevent later developmental difficulties.'

there are still other variables lib, i don't think this means what you think it means. fwiw.