Dr Elsje van Bergen

@drelsje.bsky.social

837 Followers 429 Following

A/Prof Psychology @ VU Amsterdam; Visiting Prof @ Oslo. Educational Genetics | Neurodiversity | Intergenerational Transmission 🧬📖➗👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 #ERC-StG #VIDI 🤸acrobat https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=X2U5w7UAAAAJ&hl=nl&oi=ao

Alexandra Starr presenting at SSSR 2026, Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. Her slide asks, “Why care about genetics in developmental research?” and explains that genes and environments are intertwined, that children partly resemble their parents because of shared genes, and that children also shape experiences that fit their characteristics. The slide concludes that accounting for genetic effects can improve estimates of environmental influences and help identify better intervention targets.

Circular diagram showing the feedback loop between theory, research, and practice in developing and improving reading and language interventions.
Arrows connect theory→research→practice→theory, illustrating iterative refinement.
Figure from this review paper: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w23yz_v1
Figure design by Neil Usher.

Diagram showing two memory systems: the hippocampus (pink) supports initial word learning; the neocortex (green) stores consolidated knowledge.
Over time, new words shift from hippocampal to cortical representations.
Illustrates gradual learning and memory reorganisation.
Figure design by Neil Usher in https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w23yz_v1

Brain diagrams showing regions involved in language and reading: superior temporal gyrus, inferior frontal gyrus, and lateral occipital cortex with the visual word form area.
Also shows the striatum and white-matter tracts for dorsal (red/cyan) and ventral (brown/green/blue/yellow) processing streams.
Figure design by Neil Usher, adapted from Asaridou & Watkins (2020). Figure from this review paper: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w23yz_v1

Diagram showing bidirectional influences among child, parents, and environment.
Parents pass on genes and provide experiences influenced by their own traits.
The child both influences and is influenced by family, school, and society.
Figure design by Neil Usher.
Figure from this review paper: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w23yz_v1

A polygenic score (PGS) estimates an individual’s genetic propensity for a trait.
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) identify small effects (β) of many single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs).
Each person’s PGS is the sum of their trait-associated alleles weighted by these effects, forming a normal distribution.
Figure design by Neil Usher, adapted from Hart, Little & van Bergen (2021, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41539-020-00079-z).
Figure from this review paper: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w23yz_v1

Language and reading skills are normally distributed.
Children in the lower tail may meet criteria for dyslexia or developmental language disorder (DLD).
Percentile scores (top) and standard-deviation cut-offs (bottom) show typical thresholds (e.g., bottom 7 % or < –1.5 SD).
Figure design by Neil Usher.

Figure 2 in the review: Levels of analysis from genes and brain systems to cognition and behaviour.
The child both influences and is influenced by parents through genetically shaped interactions, and by the wider school and social environment.
Figure design by Neil Usher.
Figure from this review paper: https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/w23yz_v1