Increased Prevalences of Left-handedness and Left-eye Sighting Dominance in Individuals with Williams-Beuren Syndrome

Abstract

Handedness and eye sighting dominance were assessed in a sample of 50 individuals (25 male, 25 female; aged 5-38 years) with Williams-Beuren syndrome (WBS). The prevalences of left-handedness and left-eyedness were compared to the normative prevalences in the general population. We found significantly higher prevalences of left-handedness and left-eyedness in the WBS sample. The higher prevalences were more salient in younger than in older individuals and in male than in female individuals. We suggest that the increased prevalence of left-handedness in WBS is a consequence of a slower maturation rate, which allows deviation from a predetermined laterality pattern.

Laterality in persons with intellectual disability II. Hand, foot, ear, and eye laterality in persons with Trisomy 21 and Williams‐Beuren syndrome

“…We did not observe any significant differences between the two age sub-groups. When using the classification chosen by van Strien et al (2005) which increased the number of left-handed individuals, we did not find a higher number of left-handers in the group with WBS, but did find more mixed-handed participants in the two groups with genetic disorders compared to TD participants; participants with WBS syndrome had an intermediate score (data not shown). When 15 items were used instead of 11, the difference between the group with WBS and the TD group was not significant.…”

Hora de balanço

“…Porém, parece que é a ausência de uma tendência lateral ou uma assimetria menos acentuada para a direita que caracteriza estas populações patológicas, ao invés de uma percentagem mais elevada de sinistrómanos bem lateralizados (e.g. 73,74) . Recentemente este assunto tem suscitado interesse, talvez pela exuberância de estudos associados às desordens coordenativas na criança (para uma revisão exaustiva sobre este assunto ver 75) .…”

“…Existem estudos associando a preferência manual esquerda a condições físicas e mentais, tais como, apneia do sono (126) , asma (127) , doença de Alzheimer (128) , síndrome de Williams-Beuren (129) , psicose (130) , esquizofrenia (131) . Os danos no hemisfério esquerdo relacionados com as patologias são apontados pelos autores como possível causa da frequência mais elevada de sinistrómanos nestes grupos.…”

Lateral preference in Williams–Beuren syndrome is associated with cognition and language

“…The behavioral profile of WBS is characterized by high sociability, visuospatial deficits, anxiety problems and relative proficiency in linguistic skills [3][4][5]. The WBS cognitive profile associates mild to moderate intellectual disability, with average full-scale intelligence quotient (IQ) in the range of 50-60. While multiple studies to date have been addressed to better define the behavioral phenotype along with its anatomical and functional correlates [6,7], little attention has been paid to the development of lateral preference in WBS and its putative correlation with the other aspects of the neurocognitive phenotype [8,9].…”