Ocular-Manual Laterality and Reading Achievement in Children with Special Learning Disabilities

The Growth of Manual Preference and Speed

“…An excess of mixed handers in one segment of the ability distribution need not imply that mixed handers differ from consistent handers in that or any other segment. Among defectives and children with learning disabilities those who were consistently lateralized did not differ from the inconsistent (Capobianco, 1966(Capobianco, , 1967. Similarly in the general school population mixed handers are not poorer than consistent ones.…”

“…The findings for both preference and skill suggest that the degree of asymmetry to the right is greater in females than males but that the difference between the sexes is slight enough to be undetected in some samples. It has been found that left-handed mothers have a larger proportion of left-handed children than left-handed fathers (Chamberlain, 1928 ;Falek, 1959 ;Annett, unpublished). This, together with the sex differences in preference and relative skill, suggests that the factors responsible for left-handedness might be less often expressed in females and that left-handed females, as a group, might be more strongly inclined toward sinistrality than left-handed males.…”