Hand Preference and Cognitive, Motor, and Behavioral Functioning in 10-Year-Old Extremely Preterm Children

Abstract

The association of hand preference (left, mixed, and right) with cognitive, academic, motor, and behavioral function was evaluated in 864 extremely preterm children at 10 years of age. Left-handed and right-handed children performed similarly but mixed-handed children had greater odds of functional deficits across domains than right-handed children.

Non-right-handedness in children born extremely preterm: Relation to early neuroimaging and long-term neurodevelopment

“…The evidence of a higher prevalence of NRH in EPT children is concordant with results from previously conducted studies, as presented in a review by Domellöf et al, showing an overall prevalence of 22% in the preterm versus 12% in the term born population [ 3 ]. The more recent studies of Pascoe et al and Burnett et al described a prevalence of 30.9% of NRH in children born very preterm (<32 week of gestation) and 23% in EPT children, respectively [ 12 , 15 ]. Differences in the exact percentages observed may be due to the use of slightly different populations as well as differences in assessing handedness, as will be discussed in further sections.…”

“…This suggests a disappearance of the effect as children grow older, but it may also be caused by using a different developmental test. Burnett et al produced comparable results for fine motor skills [ 15 ], but Pascoe et al did not [ 12 ]. In term born children, Freitas et al described better manual dexterity scores in right- than left-handers (p = 0.001) [ 37 ].…”

“…We were unable to show an association between handedness and cognitive skills, which is in line with several other studies [ 9 , 40 , 41 ]. However, others did find certain cognitive domains to be linked to NRH in a preterm population [ 12 , 42 ], or only to mixed-handedness [ 15 ]. Since we did not reassess cognition at school age (4–8 years), it is uncertain if more clear differences may appear in later life.…”

“…Furthermore, our definition of handedness as a binomial variable is debatable. Others suggest defining handedness as a trinomial or even continuous variable, by taking into consideration the strength of handedness, or determining hand preference categories longitudinally [ 15 , 47 , 49 ].…”

“…A recent study by Campbell et al found that term born infants with a late developing right-hand preference are significantly less developed on neuromotor measures than infants with no preference, early right preference, and left-hand preference infants at 6 months of age [ 14 ]. However, another recent study by Burnett et al reported equal cognitive, academic, motor and behavioural performance among left- and right-handers in very preterm and EPT populations, but reported that mixed-handed children show greater odds of functional deficits across these domains [ 15 ].…”