Forrester Gillian S, Pegler Ruth, Thomas Michael S C, Mareschal Denis
Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2HW England, United Kingdom.
Department of Psychology, University of Westminster, 309 Regent Street, London, W1B 2HW England, United Kingdom.
Behav Brain Res. 2014 Jul 15;268:14-21. doi: 10.1016/j.bbr.2014.03.040. Epub 2014 Apr 2.
We employed a multiple case studies approach to investigate lateralization of hand actions in typically and atypically developing children between 4 and 5 years of age. We report on a detailed set of over 1200 hand actions made by four typically developing boys and four boys with autism. Participants were assessed for unimanual hand actions to both objects and the self (self-directed behaviors). Individual and group analyses suggest that typically developing children have a right hand dominance for hand actions to objects and a left hand dominance for hand actions for self-directed behaviors, revealing a possible dissociation for functional specialization of the left and right hemispheres respectively. Children with autism demonstrated mixed-handedness for both target conditions, consistent with the hypothesis that there is reduced cerebral specialization in these children. The findings are consistent with the view that observed lateralized motor action can serve as an indirect behavioral marker for evidence of cerebral lateralization.
我们采用多案例研究方法，调查4至5岁正常发育和发育异常儿童手部动作的偏侧化情况。我们报告了4名正常发育男孩和4名自闭症男孩所做出的一组详细的1200多个手部动作。对参与者进行了针对物体和自身的单手手部动作（自我导向行为）评估。个体和组分析表明，正常发育的儿童在针对物体的手部动作上右手占优势，在自我导向行为的手部动作上左手占优势，分别揭示了左右半球功能特化可能存在的分离。自闭症儿童在两种目标条件下均表现出混合利手，这与这些儿童大脑特化程度降低的假设一致。这些发现与以下观点一致，即观察到的偏侧化运动动作可作为大脑偏侧化证据的间接行为指标。
