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By investigating children whose parents have dyslexia, family risk (FR) studies are expanding our understanding of the intergenerational transmission of dyslexia. These studies, however, vary in their identification of FR, and how the use of different identification methods influences research findings and conclusions is yet to be systematically investigated. This study aims to evaluate the association between two FR identification methods—parental self‐reports and direct skill assessments—and their unique contributions in the prediction of children's reading. The study employed two datasets: a prospective FR sample (half of the parents in the sample had dyslexia and the remaining half did not) and an unselected sample. Parental self‐reports and direct skill assessments correlated strongly (.60) in the prospective FR sample and moderately (.42) in the unselected sample. Moreover, both FR identification methods were almost equally predictive of children's reading (explaining 5%–9% of the variance at different time points) in the prospective FR sample only. In the prediction of the children's skills, the two methods complemented each other only for some of the measures. At the same time, in the unselected sample, parental skills were not predictive of children's reading, whereas self‐reports were. The two FR identification methods seem to have equally high predictive power when the variability in parental data is high. However, they lose their predictive power when either the lower or higher end of the parental reading distribution is underrepresented. By investigating children whose parents have dyslexia, family risk (FR) studies are expanding our understanding of the intergenerational transmission of dyslexia. These studies, however, vary in their identification of FR, and how the use of different identification methods influences research findings and conclusions is yet to be systematically investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the hypothesis that in the formation of judgements about a man’s biological fatherhood based on similarity of physical characteristics, people may take into consideration not only the similarity of father to child, but also of mother to child. The objective of the experiment was to conduct an initial investigation of that assumption. In the experiment, participants were presented with descriptions in which information was manipulated concerning the similarity of child to mother vs. to father vs. to neither of them. A total of 312 students of both sexes took participation in the experiment, having agreed to take part in a short psychological study immediately after classes were over. They were asked to read some short stories and to give their opinion as to whether the man described is the biological father of the child. It turned out that in conditions where the child’s appearance was dissimilar to both of the parents, the participants doubted the biological parenthood of the father. In conditions where the child was similar to the mother, the certainty of participants that the man was the biological father was as high as in conditions where the story indicated that the child was similar to him. The results thus suggest that information about a child’s similarity to its mother may, in some situations, be significant in the formulation of judgements on the biological fatherhood of a man.

The combination of investigating child and family characteristics sheds light on the constellation of risk factors that can ultimately lead to dyslexia. This family-risk study examines plausible preschool risk factors and their specificity. Participants ( N = 196, 42 % girls) included familial risk (FR) children with and without dyslexia in Grade 3 and controls. First, we found impairments in phonological awareness, rapid naming, and letter knowledge in FR kindergartners with later dyslexia, and mild phonological-awareness deficits in FR kindergartners without subsequent dyslexia. These skills were better predictors of reading than arithmetic, except for rapid naming. Second, the literacy environment at home was comparable among groups. Third, having a dyslexic parent and literacy abilities of the non-dyslexic parent related to offspring risk of dyslexia. Parental literacy abilities might be viewed as indicators of offspring's liability for literacy difficulties, since parents provide offspring with genetic and environmental endowment. We propose an intergenerational multiple deficit model in which both parents confer cognitive risks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resemblance between parents and children has been suggested as an indicator of kinship. Because men, unlike women, cannot be certain about parenthood, resemblance may influence men more than women when making investment decisions. In the present paper we examine the relation of physical resemblance and personality similarity with parental investment for 90 Dutch parents and their school-age children. For mothers investment was linked to personality similarity, whereas for fathers investment was linked to physical resemblance, suggesting that fathers are influenced by physical cues when making investment decisions, whereas mothers are influenced by psychological cues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Kinship is a key element in the recognition of human genetic relatedness. People use phenotype matching, especially resemblance with respect to facial features, to recognize kin. Bressan and Dal Martello (2002) assessed the effects of actual and assumed genetic relatedness on resemblance ratings made by Italian adults. We replicated their experiment using Japanese individuals as our stimuli and raters. To further assess the processes underlying resemblance ratings, we also compared reaction times. As in previous research, belief in genetic relatedness strongly affected resemblance ratings, but the direction of the cognitive bias was different. Analysis of reaction times indicated that participants took shorter time to assess the resemblance of unrelated pair members than related ones. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents the hypothesis that in the formation of judgements about a man's biological fatherhood based on similarity of physical characteristics, people may take into consideration not only the similarity of father to child, but also of mother to child. The objective of the experiment was to conduct an initial investigation of that assumption. In the experiment, participants were presented with descriptions in which information was manipulated concerning the similarity of child to mother vs. to father vs. to neither of them. A total of 312 students of both sexes took participation in the experiment, having agreed to take part in a short psychological study immediately after classes were over. They were asked to read some short stories and to give their opinion as to whether the man described is the biological father of the child. It turned out that in conditions where the child's appearance was dissimilar to both of the parents, the participants doubted the biological parenthood of the father. In conditions where the child was similar to the mother, the certainty of participants that the man was the biological father was as high as in conditions where the story indicated that the child was similar to him. The results thus suggest that information about a child's similarity to its mother may, in some situations, be significant in the formulation of judgements on the biological fatherhood of a man., Competing Interests: The author has no competing interests to declare.