What is it about?
Researchers have long been interested in the links between handedness and language, but prior work by developmental scientists on this topic did not capture the dynamic nature of handedness in young children, and results have been mixed. In this study, hand use was measured at seven time points in toddlers over the second year of life. Trajectories were created that represent three different handedness patterns, and these patterns explained some of the variance in language skills one year later when children were 3-years-old. The highest expressive and expressive language scores were seen in children who had the greatest consistency in handedness as toddlers.
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Why is it important?
This project is unique in that it used handedness trajectories as a predictor for later language outcomes.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Toddler hand preference trajectories predict 3-year language outcome, Developmental Psychobiology, September 2017, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1002/dev.21560.
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Resources
Early handedness in infancy predicts language ability in toddler
Related publication from the same dataset.
How the Development of Handedness Could Contribute to the Development of Language
Related publication examining the mechanism underlying handedness and language links across development.
Preschool language ability is predicted by toddler hand preference trajectories
Related publication from the same dataset.
Contributors
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