Do hand preferences predict stacking skill during infancy?

Abstract

The cascade theory of handedness suggests that hand preferences develop from a history of cascading and sequentially developing manual asymmetries for a variety of actions. Infants who consistently use their preferred hand for a variety of actions likely would gain proficiency using that preferred hand and, consequently, perform more proficiently on other challenging manual tasks. One such task is object stacking, which has been linked with a number of cognitive abilities. If infant hand preference facilitates the development of stacking skill, then this could provide a link by which early hand preference might affect the development of cognition. From a sample of 380 infants assessed for an acquisition hand preference across 6-14 months, 131 infants were assessed for stacking skill from 10 to 14 months at monthly visits. Four unique handedness sub-groups were identified from the 380-infant sample: left, trending right, stable right, or no hand preference. Each of the four hand preference groups exhibited different trajectories in the development of their stacking skills. Left- and stable right-handers stacked more items than infants with no preference by 14 months, whereas infants with a trending right preference did not. The proportion of preferred hand use (right and left) from 6 to 9 months also predicted an earlier initial onset of stacking skill, whereas the proportion of only right hand use did not. Thus, the development of a hand preference predicts an earlier emergence of stacking skill and may have implications for other domains of infant cognitive development.

Individual-Level and Population-Level Lateralization: Two Sides of the Same Coin

“…This is the case, for example, for chimpanzees, when fishing termites using a stick: individuals with a strong preference to consistently use one hand (regardless of whether it is the left or the right one) are more efficient than individuals that do not have any preference to use one or the other hand [15]. Children with consistent early hand preferences exhibit advanced patterns of cognitive development compared to children who develop a hand preference later, although this could be a matter of synchronized development [16]. Strongly lateralized parrots showing a significant foot and eye preference are better at solving novel problems, such as a pebble-seed discrimination test and a string-pull problem, than less strongly lateralized parrots [17].…”

How Might the Relation of the Development of Hand Preferences to the Development of Cognitive Functions be Examined During Infancy: A Sketch?

“…Consistency of a hand preference across infancy (6–14 months) and toddlerhood (18–24 months) predicted advances in language skills at 3 years of age (Nelson et al, 2017 ). An infant hand preference predicted advances in infant and toddler object construction skills (i.e., stacking blocks) that is thought to both reflect and contribute to the development of spatial knowledge (Marcinowski et al, 2016 ).…”

The Development of Object Construction From Infancy Through Toddlerhood

“…The descriptive information of this study sheds light on how different kinds of object construction change from infancy through toddlerhood. Some have proposed that the development of object construction skills could affect or reflect cognitive and language development (e.g., Greenfield, ; Marcinowski et al., ; Michel, Campbell, Marcinowski, Nelson, & Babik, ). We suggest three avenues of research for future study.…”

“…Infants and toddlers are capable of performing these construction skills and will do so spontaneously. In pilot work for an earlier project, we found that 9‐month‐old infants were not performing any successful combinations (Marcinowski et al., ), suggesting that 10 months was the appropriate age to start examining construction abilities in infants. We selected the toddler time points because children have been shown to increase the number of constructions across this period (Lifter & Bloom, ), and we expected to capture a wider range of construction skills and strategies in the older age band.…”

“…Stacking involves placing an individual object on top of another object. Only 15% of infants can stack one block on top of another block at 10 months of age (Marcinowski, Campbell, Faldowski, & Michel, 2016). By 15 months, more than 75% of toddlers can build a two-block tower with over 50% of toddlers building five-block and eight-block towers by 18 and 25 months, respectively (Hayashi & Matsuzawa, 2003).…”