Evidence for a maternal effect on infant hand‐use preferences

Harkins, Debra A.; Michel, George F.

doi:10.1002/dev.420210604

Cited by 45 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…First, the rate of left-handedness is about 10% for children of two right-handed parents, 20% for children of one left-and one right-handed parent, and about 26% for children of two lefthanded parents (McManus and Bryden 1994). Children are also more likely to share handedness with their mother than with their father (Harkins and Michel, 1988). These facts, though suggestive of genetic influence, could also be explained by children learning handedness from their parents, given that most children spend more time in early childhood with their mothers than with their fathers.…”

Section: Causes Of Handednessmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure and Human Capital Accumulation

Goodman

2012

SSRN Journal

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Left-and right-handed individuals have different brain structures, particularly in relation to language processing. Using five data sets from the US and UK, I show that poor infant health increases the likelihood of a child being left-handed. I argue that handedness can thus be used to explore the long-run impacts of differential brain structure generated in part by poor infant health. Even conditional on infant health and family background, lefties exhibit economically and statistically significant human capital deficits relative to righties. Compared to righties, lefties score a tenth of a standard deviation lower on measures of cognitive skill and, contrary to popular wisdom, are not over-represented at the high end of the distribution. Lefties have more emotional and behavioral problems, have more learning disabilities such as dyslexia, complete less schooling, and work in less cognitively intensive occupations. Differences between left-and right-handed siblings are similar in magnitude. Most strikingly, lefties have six percent lower annual earnings than righties, a gap that can largely be explained by these differences in cognitive skill, disabilities, schooling and occupational choice. Lefties work in more manually intensive occupations than do righties, further suggesting that lefties' primary labor market disadvantage is cognitive rather than physical. Those likely be left-handed due to genetics show smaller or no deficits relative to righties, suggesting the importance of environmental shocks as the source of disadvantage. Handedness provides parents and schools a costlessly observable characteristic with which to identify young children whose cognitive and behavioral development may warrant additional attention. * For their very helpful comments, I am grateful to Caroline Hoxby, Ed Glaeser, Amitabh Chandra and Felipe BarreraOsorio, as well as participants in the NBER Education Group meetings and the Harvard Kennedy School Faculty Seminar. Colin Sullivan and Heather Sarsons provided outstanding research assistance. Finally, I thank my left-handed wife, Anna Lumelsky, for encouraging this work even when the coefficients troubled her. All errors are my own.

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Section: Causes Of Handednessmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure and Human Capital Accumulation

Goodman

2012

SSRN Journal

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“…Evidências adicionais indicam que existe congruência entre a preferência manual do bebê e a preferência manual da mãe, enquanto que o mesmo não tem sido verificado em relação à preferência manual do pai (cf. Ashton, 1982;Harkins & Michel, 1988). Em famílias com pais discordantes em relação à preferência manual, a descendência manual esquerda provém com maior frequência da mãe do que do pai (Annett, 1978(Annett, , 1999.…”

Section: Fatores Ontogenéticos Na Formação Da Lateralidadeunclassified

Sobre a relação entre filogenia e ontogenia no desenvolvimento da lateralidade na infância

Souza¹,

Teixeira²

2011

Psicol. Reflex. Crit.

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ResumoA lateralidade humana tem sido concebida como sendo predominantemente o resultado de fatores filogenéticos do desenvolvimento humano, enquanto que apenas importância secundária tem sido atribuída à interação indivíduo-ambiente. Neste estudo é apresentada uma revisão crítica da literatura com indicadores da influência de fatores filo e ontogenéticos no desenvolvimento da lateralidade, com particular ênfase aos primeiros anos de vida. A partir dos resultados discutidos, propomos que a lateralidade humana é um processo dinâmico, com efeitos marcantes das experiências sensório-motoras lateralizadas sobre a preferência manual e assimetrias interlaterais de desempenho motor. Palavras-chave: Dominância lateral; Manualidade; Filogênese; Ontogênese. AbstractHuman laterality has been conceived as resulting, predominantly, from phylogenetic factors in human development, whereas individual-environment interaction is thought to play only a minor role. This study aims at presenting a critical review of literature showing evidence of the effect of phylogenetic and ontogenetic factors on the development of laterality, with particular emphasis on the first years of life. From the results presented, we propose that human laterality is a dynamic process, with sharp effects of lateralized sensorimotor experiences over manual preference and interlateral asymmetry of motor performance. Keywords: Lateral dominance; Handedness; Phylogenesis; Ontogenesis.Na teorização sobre origem e desenvolvimento da lateralidade humana dois pontos de vista antagônicos têm sido defendidos. A visão predominante é de que a lateralidade é essencialmente determinada por fatores filogenéticos (cf. Annett, 1978Annett, , 1996Annett, , 1999M. P. Bryden, 1990;Levy, 1976). Por esta concepção, a preferência manual é derivada de uma assimetria interlateral, originária da maior capacidade de controle motor com a mão preferida em comparação com a mão não-preferida. Oferece-se como explanação para as assimetrias interlaterais de desempenho a concepção de que os genes trazem embutidas em seu código especificações sobre o desenvolvimento diferenciado dos hemisférios cerebrais, determinando qual deles será o hemisfério dominante em relação a determinadas funções. Assim, considera-se que para pessoas destras o hemisfério cerebral direito seja o principal responsável por processamento paralelo e percepção de aspectos espaciais do ambiente, enquanto que o hemisfério esquerdo desempenha o papel principal no sequenciamento e temporização de movimentos (Goodale, 1990). Uma vez que o controle corporal pelo córtex cerebral é predominantemente cruzado, o lado corporal contrário ao hemisfério cerebral dominante tem maior potencial de controle do que o lado corporal ipsilateral. A partir de tais princípios, seria de se esperar uma vantagem generalizada e consistente de desempenho em tarefas motoras realizadas com o lado dominante em relação ao desempenho com o lado não-dominante, havendo relativa independência de fatores ambientais.Uma concepção antagônica foi formulada orig...

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“…Others searched for asymmetries in primary hand activities such as spontaneous hand closure (Cobb, Goodwin, & Saelens, 1966) or grasping behaviors (Caplan & Kinsbourne, 1976;Hawn & Harris, 1983). Still other studies related the development of lateral asymmetries to the position of the fetus in utero (Michel & Goodwin, 1979;Previc, 1991) or to early mother -infant social interactions (Harkins & Michel, 1988;Harkins & Uzgiris, 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Lateral biases and fluctuations in infants' spontaneous arm movements and reaching

Corbetta

Thelen

1999

Developmental Psychobiology

106

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Evidence for a maternal effect on infant hand‐use preferences

Cited by 45 publications

References 19 publications

The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure and Human Capital Accumulation

The Wages of Sinistrality: Handedness, Brain Structure and Human Capital Accumulation

Sobre a relação entre filogenia e ontogenia no desenvolvimento da lateralidade na infância

Lateral biases and fluctuations in infants' spontaneous arm movements and reaching

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