Mayumi Yamamoto

Cerebral Functional Asymmetry and MBD Children: A Synergistic Deficit of Hemispheres?

The functional cerebral organization of minimal brain-damaged (MBD) children was studied by testing tactile-visual matching of concrete objects. The results revealed that left hand performance was significantly better than the right in the MBD children while normal controls showed no hand difference, and overall performance level was poor for MBD children. These findings are consistent with the view that tactile matching of concrete objects requires hemispheric synergy and that MBD children lack this synergy.

Handedness and Imbalance Lateralization on the Tapping Test in MBD Children

Twenty MBD children and thirty-eight normal control children were tested for handedness and for lateralization on a Finger Tapping Test. The frequency of nonright handedness in normal children was 16%, whereas it was 60% in MBD children. The significance of this difference was discussed. The imbalance hypothesis in regard to the Tapping Test was examined. The hypothesis that extreme laterality is more in MBD children than controls was not supported in this study.

Developmental changes for hemispheric specialization of tactile recognition by normal children.

42 normal children aged from 8 to 12 yr. identified tactile stimuli in a visual display. The results indicated the left-hand (right hemisphere) specialization for tactile-spatial ability develops with increasing age in middle childhood.