Previous studies have found an association between motor immaturity and specific @entity73 in @entity1 . Data from two twin studies were used to address the question of whether these linked deficits have a common etiology. Study 1 involved 57 MZ and 22 DZ pairs where one or both twins had specific speech/ @entity73 . A control group of 173 single-born @entity1 was also tested. Motor skill was assessed using a tapping task, which was carried out with left and right hands. Tapping scores were converted to scaled scores adjusted for age and sex. Unaffected twins and single-born controls did not differ in motor skill, but twins with speech and/or @entity73 obtained significantly poorer tapping scores than controls. Bivariate DeFries-Fulker analysis pointed to shared genetic influence on tapping speed and a measure of speech production accuracy. In study 2, 37 twin pairs from study 1 were retested 2-3 years later and combined with 100 twin pairs from a general population sample. A timed peg-moving task was used to assess motor skill. @entity1 with combined speech and @entity73 obtained poorer peg-moving scores than unaffected @entity1 . Bivariate DeFries-Fulker analysis found significant shared genetic variance for impairments on peg-moving and on a test of nonword repetition. It is concluded that genes that put the @entity1 at risk for communicative problems also affect motor development, with the association being most evident when speech production is affected.

Motor immaturity and specific speech and XXXX : evidence for a common genetic basis.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['children', 'Children', 'child'] @entity73 :: ('MESH:D003072', 'Disease') :: ['language impairments', 'language impairment']
@entity73 :: (MESH:D003072,Disease) :: ['language impairment']
