Genes Determine Your Child's Education Levels, Reveal Scientists

How far your child is going to fare well at school might be determined by his genes, keeping aside his hard work. Scientists have revealed that they have recognized 74 genes that can influence how well your child would perform at school. It, of course, depends on which variant of the discovered genes a child might possess.

It also turns out that a lot of other influences such as family circumstances, opportunities, and diet barely have any influence on your child’s ability to perform at school, at just less than half of one percent of the total outcome. Considering the entire human genome, while combining all the known genetic variants in the genome, it comes to only about 3%.

The study was first published in Nature and enables the researchers to draw any match to personality traits that are genetically associated. Some of these attributes could be contentiousness and grit that are pretty much required for acquiring education on a societal level, but not necessarily on an individual level.

Scientists have also inferred that a single gene is likely to have a tangible impact. It turns out that those children who have two copies of the variants (which variant?) when compared to those who have no copies on an average have nine more weeks of schooling. It is the largest effect that has been deciphered thusfar, as explained by Daniel Benjamin, professor at Univeresity of Southern California.

The most common variants known as SNPs or ‘snips’ could crop up as duplications or deletions of the DNA fragments.

In a previous research by the same crew of 250 scientists worldwide, they covered the genomes of 100,000 (humans, or genes?) with the result that there were only three genes of relevance. In the given study, the Social Science Genetic Association Constortium raised the genomes sequencing by three times that gave further insights.

The genome of 300,000 people belonged to European descent due to most of the available data coming from Europe, US and Australia. However whatever has been deciphered thusfar is supposed to be only the beginning. The scientists have added that from the past research on twins and other relatives “the total contribution from all genetic variants on individual differences on educational attainment is 20 to 40 percent.”

The researchers have also found that the genes that were isolated by the study were predominantly active in the brain especially during the prenatal period, and therefore might also play an important role in neural development. At the same time it has been observed that some of these genes might be directly linked to dementia and could open doors to investigate the treatment of the same.

Some other genes have predicted the risk of biopolar disorders.

However, the scientists urge people not to draw parallels between genes and academic achievements or for that matter intelligence. But they certainly stress that the researach could help them understand how the environmental changes alter influences of genes on behavior with respect to classroom.

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