Relation of Age and Mongolism to Lateral Preferences in Severely Subnormal Subjects

HILDRETH 1 estimated the incidence of left-handedness in very young children to be about twice as high as in the adult population. This is consistent both with an effect of social training and also with maturation in lateral dominance, but in either case one might expect a subnormal population to sh...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature (London) 1970-12, Vol.228 (5278), p.1342-1344
Main Authors: PICKERSGILL, MARY J, PANK, PENELOPE
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Age Factors
Brain Damage, Chronic
Child
Child, Preschool
Down Syndrome
Female
Functional Laterality
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Intellectual Disability - diagnosis
letter
Male
multidisciplinary
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
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Summary:HILDRETH 1 estimated the incidence of left-handedness in very young children to be about twice as high as in the adult population. This is consistent both with an effect of social training and also with maturation in lateral dominance, but in either case one might expect a subnormal population to show, at least up to a certain age, a greater incidence of left-handedness. Burt 2 and Gordon 3 , relying partly on the observations of teachers, both found this; Clausen 4 , however, using three objective tests, found no differences between retardate and normal groups aged 8 to 10 years. Severe subnormality, however, has scarcely been investigated; the children examined by Burt and Gordon, and the 46 per cent of Clausen's retardate subjects with IQs above 60, would almost certainly not be so graded. An attempt 5 to differentiate by diagnosis ranked the incidence of left-handedness in groups of subnormal males in the (diminishing) order: “familial”, “brain-damaged”, “mongols”. It therefore seemed worthwhile to investigate lateral preferences in normal and severely subnormal groups, examining separately the effects of age and mongolism.
ISSN:0028-0836
1476-4687
DOI:10.1038/2281342a0