Anthropology.net & prefonal both have posts up which survey a new paper, A Functional Genetic Link between Distinct Developmental Language Disorders:
We found that FOXP2 binds to and dramatically down-regulates CNTNAP2, a gene that encodes a neurexin and is expressed in the developing human cortex. On analyzing CNTNAP2 polymorphisms in children with typical specific language impairment, we detected significant quantitative associations with nonsense-word repetition, a heritable behavioral marker of this disorder (peak association, P=5.0x10-5 at SNP rs17236239). Intriguingly, this region coincides with one associated with language delays in children with autism.
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Specific languag
Today, a new paper published in Nature adds another chapter to the story of FOXP2, a gene with important roles in speech and language. The FOXP2 story is a fascinating tale that I covered in New Scientist last year.
My understanding is that one of these SNPs was reported by 23andME: http://spittoon.23andme.com/2008/11/06/snpwatch-genetic-variant-linked-…
According to dbsnp:
the risk allele G is found in
AG: 48.3% Europeans
GG: 15.0% Europeans (HapMap CEU)
This seems to be fairly prevalent.