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Twins and their singleton siblings differ in language, cognition, and social-emotional development

Wood, E., Brown, A. and von Stumm, S. (2026) Twins and their singleton siblings differ in language, cognition, and social-emotional development. Child Development. 0009-3920.

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Wood_et_al_2026_Twins_and_their_singleton_siblings_differ_in_language_cognition_and_social-emotional_development.pdf - Published Version
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Abstract:
This study compared the language, cognition, and social-emotional development between twins and their younger singleton siblings at the ages 2, 3, 4, and 7 years. Data were collected 1996–2004 from 851 sibling trios from the Twins Early Development Study (TEDS; 50.2% female; 93.2% White British). Distributions were comparable between twins and singletons across domains, indicative of mean rather than variance discrepancies. Twins performed worse than singletons in language, cognition, and social-emotional development across ages, with small to moderate effect sizes (d = 0.17–0.62). An exception was language at age 7 years, when twins exceeded their singleton siblings (d = −0.35). Overall, twins and their singleton siblings differed in development across domains and their differences in language reversed during childhood.
Additional Information:
Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development.
Uncontrolled Keywords:
individual differences, social-emotional, cognition, language, twins
Creators:
Wood, E., Brown, A. and von Stumm, S.
Date:
24 March 2026
Date Type:
Publication
Journal or Publication Title:
Child Development
Number of Pages:
13
Language:
English
ISSN:
0009-3920
Status:
Published / Disseminated
Refereed:
Yes
Related URLs:
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