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The “differential susceptibility hypothesis” postulates that people with certain genetic variants do worse in standard environments, yet better in enriched ones, than people without such variants. Data support this hypothesis for psychological functioning. Researchers now report results from the first randomized, controlled study of this theory in an educational paradigm.
Parents of 182 Dutch children (58% of those eligible; mean age, 53 months; 59% male) consented to their children's genotyping and randomization to 15-week, computerized, early-literacy programs that did, or did not, include positive feedback or to a control program that did not focus on literacy. The programs were developmentally appropriate — e.g., teaching the phonemes of…