A Conservative Meta-Analysis of Linkage and Linkage-Association Studies of Developmental Dyslexia

Linkage studies of complex phenotypes such as reading ability/disability (developmental dyslexia or reading disorder) and related componential processes, where the effects attributable to individual genes appear to be modest, are critically dependent on the nature and composition of the samples and the phenotypes analyzed. Thus, it might be helpful to consider the results from individual studies collectively so that summative profiles of findings can be considered. To gain an impression of how useful such an approach might be, a conservative meta-analysis based on Fisher's pooled p values approach was performed on regional linkage/association studies of developmental dyslexia and related phenotypes published through early September 2004. The obtained results rank order the findings and stress the need to contextualize the results with more regional linkage/association studies as well as with statistical simulation studies.