Nature and Nurture During Middle Childhood

John C. Defries, David W. Fulker

What are the origins of individual differences? Virtually no one studying human development today sees the nature/nurture question as an either-or one. However, very few developmental researchers as yet appreciate the extent to which it is now possible to map genetic influences in a range of domains from cognitive functioning to temperament all through the childhood years. (For example, although there is substantial genetic continuity for measures of general cognitive ability from infancy to early childhood, new genetic influences emerge to affect IQ in middle childhood, when specific cognitive abilities also begin to differentiate.) Even fewer developmental researchers appreciate the startling way in which expressions of the child's genetic endowment appear to affect what we have been accustomed to thinking of as stable environmental forces.

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