Genetic and environmental influences on child reports of manifest anxiety and symptoms of separation anxiety and overanxious disorders: A community-based twin study

Genetic and environmental influences in the determination of individual differences in self-reported symptoms of separation anxiety (SAD), overanxious disorder (OAD), and manifest anxiety (MANX) were evaluated in children and adolescents for three age groups (8-10, 11-13, and 14-16). Symptom counts for SAD and OAD were assessed for 1412 twin pairs using the children's version of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment, and MANX scores were based on child report from die Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scales. Despite significant age and gender differences in thresholds of liability for child reports of symptoms of SAD and OAD, additive genetic and environmental effects could be set equal across age and gender for these variables. For MANX, however, the best-fitting model was a common effects sex-limitation model with estimates of heritability varying dependent upon age and gender. Parameter estimates from the ACE models of OAD and SAD showed that additive genetic variation was a necessary component in the explanation of individual differences in child-reported symptoms of OAD (h(2) = .37) across gender, but does not appear to be a major contributor to the explanation of individual differences in symptoms of SAD reported by children. Shared environmental effects (c(2) = .40) were found to play a moderate role for SAD but could be dropped from the model for OAD and from all of the age groups for MANX, although the parameter approached significance among 11 yr to 13-year-old males.