Hand preference and Mathematical Learning Difficulties: New data from Greece, the United Kingdom, and Germany and two meta-analyses of the literature

Παπαδάτου-Παστού, Μαριέττα; Panagiotidou, Despoina A.; Abbondanza, Filippo; Fischer, Ursula; Paracchini, Silvia; Karagiannakis, Giannis

doi:10.31234/osf.io/pc6zh

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 133 publications

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“…Our findings are in line with previous findings that do not show elevated levels of atypical (left, mixed, or non-right) handedness in a condition not affecting language, namely mathematical learning difficulties (Papadatou-Pastou et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Handedness in ADHD: Meta-Analyses

Nastou¹,

Ocklenburg²,

Παπαδάτου-Παστού³

2020

Preprint

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Meta-analyses have shown that several neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder and schizophrenia, are associated with a higher prevalence of left- and/or mixed-handedness. One neurodevelopmental disorder for which this association is unclear is attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Here, some empirical studies have found evidence for a higher prevalence of left- and/or mixed-handedness in individuals with ADHD compared to neurotypical individuals. However, other studies failed to establish such an association. Therefore, meta-analytic integration is critical to estimate whether or not there is an association between handedness and ADHD. We report the results of three meta-analyses comparing handedness in individuals with ADHD to controls (typically developing individuals). The results show no evidence of differences in left-handedness and non-right-handedness between individuals with ADHD and controls. It was, however, found that individuals with ADHD showed a higher prevalence of mixed-handedness than controls. These findings are discussed in the context of the hypothesis that ADHD is a disorder in which mostly right-hemispheric brain networks are affected. Since right-handedness represents a dominance of the left motor cortex for fine motor behavior, such as writing, as well as a left-hemispheric dominance for language functions, and about 90% of individuals are right-handers, this hypothesis might explain why left-handedness is mostly unaffected in ADHD. We suggest that only in conditions where language is affected one should expect to find elevated levels of left-handedness.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Handedness in ADHD: Meta-Analyses

Nastou¹,

Ocklenburg²,

Παπαδάτου-Παστού³

2020

Preprint

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“…The Role of Handedness in Arithmetic Processing. Behaviourally, there is no clear evidence for general performance differences between marked right-handers and left-handers in math 33 , although both right-and left-handers usually perform better than for example mixed-handers [34][35][36] . However, somewhat contrary to the above findings, professional mathematicians show on average a lower degree of handedness 37,38 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

Functional lateralization of arithmetic processing in the intraparietal sulcus is associated with handedness

Artemenko

Sitnikova

Soltanlou

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Functional lateralization is established for various cognitive functions, but was hardly ever investigated for arithmetic processing. Most neurocognitive models assume a central role of the bilateral intraparietal sulcus (IPS) in arithmetic processing and there is some evidence for more pronounced left-hemispheric activation for symbolic arithmetic. However, evidence was mainly obtained by studies in right-handers. Therefore, we conducted a functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study, in which IPS activation of left-handed adults was compared to right-handed adults in a symbolic approximate calculation task. The results showed that left-handers had a stronger functional right-lateralization in the IPS than right-handers. This finding has important consequences, as the bilateral IPS activation pattern for arithmetic processing seems to be shaped by functional lateralization and thus differs between left- and right-handers. We propose three possible accounts for the observed functional lateralization of arithmetic processing.

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“…Moreover, the authors suggested that deaf individuals who acquired language (either sign or spoken) at a later age are those who present with increased rates of atypical handedness. A possible reason could be that increased rates of left-and/or mixed-handedness seem to be specifically associated with conditions related to impaired language-related abilities (Papadatou-Pastou et al, 2019). This is in line with the finding that higher genetic risk for ADHD and genetic liability towards lower intelligence and educational years have been associated with reduced language-related skills (Verhoef et al, 2019) and left-handedness, while there is no association between handedness and genetic factors involved in bipolar disorder (Schmitz et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%