University of Edinburgh

Academic Institute

Michelle LucianoProf Kathleen RastleProf Timothy Bates

B3850

Literacy is fundamental to a nation's social and economic prosperity, and poor reading skills can have lasting negative outcomes on individuals. Key to avoiding enduring deficits in reading skill is early identification of risk, and targeted environmental intervention at the individual and population level. To do this, a complete understanding of the causes of variation in reading skill is needed and this necessitates a biopsychosocial approach. Our research will harness breakthroughs in genetics that yield practical genetic risk measures for literacy and language skills. We will extend research in a novel way by combining molecular genetic data with longitudinal environmental predictors of communication skills. The intersection of these rich datasets will permit us to address challenging questions about the gene-environment interplay on reading skill and their consequences on child and adolescent mental health.

Research publications, conference presentations, and knowledge exchange/public engagement of findings to teachers and parents of children with learning difficulties. We expect our results can influence public policy on special needs in education. Note: I tried 3 different web browsers but was unable to select multiple terms below the subject classification. For appropriate disease/conditions can I add Behaviour, Mental Health, and Speech/language problem. For Keywords, can I add Childhood, Cognition, Communication, Development, Genetics, Parenting.

17/08/2021