The emergence of visual cortex specialization for culturally acquired characters like letters and digits, both arbitrary shapes related to specific cognitive domains, is yet unclear. Here, 20 young children (6.12 years old) were tested with a frequency-tagging paradigm coupled with electroencephalogram recordings to assess discrimination responses…

American and Israeli toddler-caregiver dyads (mean age of toddler = 26 months) were presented with naturalistic tasks in which they must watch a short video (N = 97) or concoct a visual story together (N = 66). English-speaking American caregivers were more likely to use left to right spatial structuring than right to left, especially for…

Compared four-year-old left-handed children and children lacking definite hand preference with right-handers on motor skills. Found no differences between left-handers and right-handers of either sex, but the children lacking hand preference had lower scores. Possible sex differences and implications for the education of children lacking…

The behavioral manifestations of hand, eye, foot, and ear preference were studied in a sample of 384 children of 3, 4, and 5 years of age, and were compared to the preferences of a group of 171 high school students. Results indicate that some aspects of lateral preference behavior are influenced by age-related variables. (Author/RH)

This commentary, written in response to Witelson's work (1987), examines alternative ways of determining how the developmentally stable functional asymmetry (hemispheric specialization) observed in neurologically intact children can be reconciled with the dramatic recovery of function often displayed following unilateral brain damage. (PCB)

Left-hemisphere language specialization in right-handed children was tested in children previously classified as consistent or nonconsistent in their hand preference. Results showed that both male hand preference groups demonstrated asymmetric interference in dual task tapping performance. In contrast, only females associated with consistency in…

Discusses the relevance of the study of the neurobiology of cognitive development, for an understanding of both the neural bases and the nature of cognition. Also considered are the age at which hemisphere specialization first appears and whether hemisphere specialization changes over time. (PCB)

Authors suggest that consideration be given to maximizing the opportunies for systems in either cerebral hemisphere to develop fully in early life, when the child is essentially split-brained," so that developmental imbalance does not exist when the two hemispheres later begin to communicate. (Authors/MB)

Findings support the hypothesis that lateral preference, per se, has little effect on information-processing behaviors. (Authors)