No abstract

The first aim of the study was to compare developmental trends in the degree of laterality (independent of direction) observed in two handedness tasks. The second aim was to assess family resemblance in the degree of laterality using the same two tasks. The sample was comprised of 186 left-handers and 302 right-handers aged from 6 to 66. Some of the sample were members of the same families. Bishop's card-reaching task was used to assess hand preference, and Annett's peg-moving task to assess manual performance. For the card-reaching task, children aged 7 to 10/11 recorded more midline crossings than the other age groups (both younger and older). No general age-related trend was observed for the Annett pegboard. For the card-reaching task, family resemblance was very low and not significant. The degree of laterality, assessed with the peg-moving task, showed a small but significant resemblance in father-offspring pairs (sons and daughters). Putative involvement of a maternally suppressed gene on chromosome 2p12 and of the androgen receptor was discussed.

The aim of the study was the validation of Bishop's reaching card test (Bishop et al., 1996) in a French population. Annett's peg-moving test (1985) and the Purdue pegboard (Tiffin, 1948) were also used to assess manual performance. Subgroups of left- and right-handers were established according to manual preference as measured by Annett's questionnaire (1985). A sample of 260 adults was tested, including 158 self-professed right-handers, 77 self-professed left-handers, and 25 self-professed ambidextrous people. The three manual performance tests and the questionnaire presented good metric qualities (homogeneity, test-retest reliability). However the constitution of subgroups of laterality (in particular left-handers) as a function of manual preference could not be validated by classic tasks, or by Bishop's test, which is supposed to combine features of both preference and performance. Moreover the link between performance and preference was weak. Both evaluations should be used to produce a complete pattern of laterality for each participant.

In a 3-year longitudinal study, we examined the relationships between oral language development, early training and reading acquisition on word-identification and readingcomprehension tests administered to a sample of 687 French children. Hierarchical linear models showed that both phonological awareness and oral comprehension at the age of 4 years were relevant to reading acquisition 2 years later. These two broad skills explained separate parts of the variance on both outcome measures, while revealing opposite effects: phonological skills explained more variance for alphabetic reading skills and oral comprehension explained more variance for reading comprehension. We also assessed the effects of two preschool training programmes focusing on either phonological awareness or comprehension skills. The results showed that phonological awareness training had a positive effect on alphabetic scores, and comprehension training had a positive effect on reading comprehension. These results provide insight into early oral instruction and contribute to the theoretical debate about the linguistic predictors of literacy acquisition.Many recent longitudinal studies have pointed out a strong relationship between oral language development and literacy acquisition. They have shown that the process of becoming literate begins well before children start academic learning (Catts, Fey, Zhang