Zygosity diagnosis in young twins by parental report
article
This study reports on zygosity determination in twins of childhood age. Parents responded to questionnaire items dealing with twin similarity in physical characteristics anti frequency of mistaking one twin for another by parents, relatives and strangers. The accuracy of zygosity diagnosis was evaluated across twins aged 6, 8, and 10 and across parents. In addition, it was examined whether the use of multiple raters and the use of longitudinal data lead to an improvement of zygosity assignment. Complete data on zygosity questions and on genetic markers or blood profiles were available for 618 twin pairs at the age of 6 years. The method used was predictive discriminant analyses. Agreement between zygosity assigned by the replies to the questions and zygosity determined by DNA markers/blood typing was around 93%. The accuracy of assignment remained constant across age and parents. Analyses of data provided by both parents and collected over multiple ages did not result in better prediction of zygosity. Details on the discriminant function are provided. Chemicals / CAS Blood Groups; Genetic Markers.
Topics
ChildhoodDiscriminant analysisQuestionnaireReviewTwin zygosityDNA markerarticleblood group typingchildhooddiscriminant analysiserrorgenetic markergenetic polymorphismgenotypepriority journaltwin zygosityAge FactorsBlood GroupsChi-Square DistributionChildDiscriminant AnalysisFathersFemaleForecastingGenetic MarkersHumanInterpersonal RelationsLongitudinal StudiesMaleMothersNetherlandsParent-Child RelationsParentsQuestionnairesSupport, Non-U.S. Gov'tTwins, DizygoticTwins, Monozygotic
TNO Identifier
953522
ISSN
13690523
Source
Twin Research, 3(3), pp. 134-141.
Pages
134-141