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

Abstract

The aim of this study was to measure the pattern of hand preferences for pointing gestures as a function of object-manipulation handedness in 123 infants and toddlers (10-40 months). The results showed that not only right-handers but also left-handers and ambidextrous participants tended to use their right hand for pointing. There was a significant correlation between manual preferences and pointing lateralization. Further analyses showed that the correlation between these two indexes was at its strongest during two key phases of language development (i.e. vocabulary spurt and syntax improvement) and weakened to become nonsignificant in the interim. These findings support the view that humans have a specialized area for communicative gestures and language in the left cerebral hemisphere that may be independent of the system controlling the purely motor functions of hand use.

Hand preference for pointing gestures and bimanual manipulation around the vocabulary spurt period

“…First, a right-hand preference was observed for both bimanual manipulation and pointing gestures, confirming the results reported in several prior studies (e.g., Bates et al, 1986;Cochet & Vauclair, 2010a, 2010bFagard & Marks, 2000;Vauclair & Imbault, 2009;Young et al, 1985).…”

“…A right-sided asymmetry especially for pointing gestures has been reported in several studies (Bates et al, 1986;Blake, O'Rourke, & Borzellino, 1994;Vauclair & Imbault, 2009;Young, Lock, & Service, 1985). Moreover, Esseily et al (2011) showed that right-handed infants for pointing understood and produced more words than non-right-handed infants, and Vauclair and Cochet (2010) observed a U-shaped relationship in toddlers between 12 and 30 months of age between the degree of hand preference for pointing and the developmental quotient for language.…”

“…Previous findings have not reported any strengthening of the right-sided asymmetry for pointing gestures between 13 and 28 months of age (Bates et al, 1986), between 10 and 40 months of age (Vauclair & Imbault, 2009), and between 12 and 38 months of age (Cochet & Vauclair, 2010a). By contrast, the degree of right-hand preference was found to augment between prepointing produced at 8 months of age and later pointing produced at 15 months (Young et al, 1985) and 12 months of age (Blake et al, 1994), likely reflecting an increasing involvement of the left cerebral hemisphere in the production of communicative gestures.…”

“…Moreover, the overall increase in the proportion of right-handers for bimanual manipulative activities reported by Vauclair and Imbault (2009) was in fact due to a difference observed from 34 months of age onward. Thus, the strength of handedness may increase during early childhood (e.g., McManus et al, 1988) in a higher age range than the one selected for the current study.…”

“…Regarding correlational analyses, Esseily et al (2011) did not observe any significant relationship between hand preference for pointing gesture and object grasping, although the majority of children were right-handed for both activities. Moreover, Vauclair and Imbault (2009), besides observing a higher number of right-handed participants in pointing than in object manipulation, reported a significant but moderate correlation between handedness scores for pointing gestures and object manipulation. More precisely, the correlation was significant between 18 and 20 months and between 29 and 32 months of age, and it became nonsignificant during the interim, which was interpreted by the authors as reflecting the influence of speech development on hand preference patterns.…”