Hand preferences in sign-learning students with autistic disorder

Abstract

The purpose of the study was fourfold: (a) to document the hand preferences of nonspeaking individuals with autism as they produced signs and nonsign actions; (b) to find out if sign-language proficiency in such individuals is associated with directionality or consistency of signing hand preference; (c) to explore the link between hand preference for signing and standardised measures of cognitive and motor development; (d) to compare the hand preferences (sign and nonsign actions) of such individuals to sign-learning children with normal cognitive functioning. In this study, the hand preferences of 14 nonspeaking students with autistic disorder were determined from videotape records of their sign production and nonsign actions. In their sign production, four students strongly favoured their right hands, four had a distinct left-hand preference, and six did not significantly favour either hand. There was little evidence linking sign-language proficiency, cognitive maturity, or motor development to strongly lateralised signing or

Relationship between manual preferences for object manipulation and pointing gestures in infants and toddlers

“…(1986) showed that infants and toddlers perform symbolic activities (games like pretending to pick up the telephone) and pointing more frequently with their right hand than they do manipulative actions. Moreover, autistic children (who have difficulty communicating) do not seem to display this more pronounced right‐handed preference, and it could be because their communicative gestures are less lateralized than those reported in the general population (Bonvillian, Gershoff, Seal & Richards, 2001).…”

“…The experimenter sat in front of the participant for the handedness tests, and to avoid a laterality bias, stood behind him/her for the pointing tasks (e.g. Bonvillian et al ., 2001). The experimenter alternated between the use of the right and left hands when she held the book from behind the participant.…”