Laterality and Motor Skills in Four-Year-Olds

Abstract

From a population of 512 4-year-olds attending preschools, 41 children were identified as left-handed and 23 as lacking definite hand preference. Using the McCarthy Motor Scales and a fine-motor scale designed by the investigator, these children were compared with right-handers matched for age, sex, and preschool attended. T tests indicated no difference between left-handers and right-handers of either sex, but the children lacking hand preference had lower scores than right-handers. Implications for the education of children lacking handedness and possible sex differences are discussed.

How Good People are at Estimating their Own Performance? A Study of the Relationship between Hand Preference and Motor Performance

“…The right-and left-handers differed in the level of their performance in relation to the two sides, depending on the dominance. The present findings are in line with the previous studies claiming that those who exhibit consistent hand preferences are better coordinated than their counterparts who display inconsistent (mixed) hand preference (Gottfried & Bathurst, 1983;Kee et al, 1991;Tan, 1985). Also, the emergence of hand and foot as a single factor (Kumar et al, 2007;Porac et al, 1980;Suar et al, 2007) and thereby proving a robust relationship between them accounts for the higher level of performance by the same sided long limbs.…”

“…Contrary to the earlier view, some studies have evinced that consistent hand preference is associated with efficient motor performance (Kee et al, 1991;Tan, 1985). They suggest that more lateralised people would be less variable in hemispheric specialisation and, therefore, would display more pronounced functional asymmetries than the inconsistent persons.…”

Drawing and Handedness of Preschoolers: A Repeated-Measurement Approach to Hand Preference

“…Others pointed to differences between left-and right-handed children (depending on their hand preference across different tasks), i.e., overrepresentation of left-handed children in the group of poor writers (Vlachos & Bonoti, 2004a) and poorer drawing performance of left-handed children (Karapetsas & Vlachos, 1997). Tan (1985) found that children lacking clear hand preference showed worse gross and fine motor performance. Karapetsas and Vlachos (1997) postulated differences in brain development, in particular regarding the myelinisation of the corpus callosum and the lateralization of the brain, as possible reasons why children with right hand preference and girls showed better performances in certain periods of development.…”

Gross and Fine Motor Skills of Left-Handed Preschool Children

“…Left-handed people, like many minorities, have inspired enmity, suspicion, and the reputation for lacking practically every human virtue and skill (Harris, 1980). By far, most motor and perceptual motor difficulties experienced by left-handed people were attributed to their handedness (Tan, 1985). Behavioral techniques and physical violence were frequently used to force children to use the r~ghr hand for writing, when they were i n c h e d to use the left one.…”