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Infant Hand Preference and the Development of Cognitive Abilities

Hand preference develops in the first two postnatal years with nearly half of infants exhibiting a consistent early preference for acquiring objects. Others exhibit a more variable developmental trajectory but by the end of their second postnatal year, most exhibit a consistent hand preference for r...

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Autores principales: Michel, George F., Campbell, Julie M., Marcinowski, Emily C., Nelson, Eliza L., Babik, Iryna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803747/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27047431
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00410
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author Michel, George F.
Campbell, Julie M.
Marcinowski, Emily C.
Nelson, Eliza L.
Babik, Iryna
author_facet Michel, George F.
Campbell, Julie M.
Marcinowski, Emily C.
Nelson, Eliza L.
Babik, Iryna
author_sort Michel, George F.
collection PubMed
description Hand preference develops in the first two postnatal years with nearly half of infants exhibiting a consistent early preference for acquiring objects. Others exhibit a more variable developmental trajectory but by the end of their second postnatal year, most exhibit a consistent hand preference for role-differentiated bimanual manipulation. According to some forms of embodiment theory, these differences in hand use patterns should influence the way children interact with their environments, which, in turn, should affect the structure and function of brain development. Such early differences in brain development should result in different trajectories of psychological development. We present evidence that children with consistent early hand preferences exhibit advanced patterns of cognitive development as compared to children who develop a hand preference later. Differences in the developmental trajectory of hand preference are predictive of developmental differences in language, object management skills, and tool-use skills. As predicted by Casasanto’s body-specificity hypothesis, infants with different hand preferences proceed along different developmental pathways of cognitive functioning.
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spelling pubmed-48037472016-04-04 Infant Hand Preference and the Development of Cognitive Abilities Michel, George F. Campbell, Julie M. Marcinowski, Emily C. Nelson, Eliza L. Babik, Iryna Front Psychol Psychology Hand preference develops in the first two postnatal years with nearly half of infants exhibiting a consistent early preference for acquiring objects. Others exhibit a more variable developmental trajectory but by the end of their second postnatal year, most exhibit a consistent hand preference for role-differentiated bimanual manipulation. According to some forms of embodiment theory, these differences in hand use patterns should influence the way children interact with their environments, which, in turn, should affect the structure and function of brain development. Such early differences in brain development should result in different trajectories of psychological development. We present evidence that children with consistent early hand preferences exhibit advanced patterns of cognitive development as compared to children who develop a hand preference later. Differences in the developmental trajectory of hand preference are predictive of developmental differences in language, object management skills, and tool-use skills. As predicted by Casasanto’s body-specificity hypothesis, infants with different hand preferences proceed along different developmental pathways of cognitive functioning. Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-03-23 /pmc/articles/PMC4803747/ /pubmed/27047431 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00410 Text en Copyright © 2016 Michel, Campbell, Marcinowski, Nelson and Babik. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Michel, George F.
Campbell, Julie M.
Marcinowski, Emily C.
Nelson, Eliza L.
Babik, Iryna
Infant Hand Preference and the Development of Cognitive Abilities
title Infant Hand Preference and the Development of Cognitive Abilities
title_full Infant Hand Preference and the Development of Cognitive Abilities
title_fullStr Infant Hand Preference and the Development of Cognitive Abilities
title_full_unstemmed Infant Hand Preference and the Development of Cognitive Abilities
title_short Infant Hand Preference and the Development of Cognitive Abilities
title_sort infant hand preference and the development of cognitive abilities
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4803747/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27047431
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00410
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