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Mirror writing in 5- to 6-year-old children: The preferred hand is not the explanation
Abstract
Non-pathological, spontaneous mirror writing, whether complete or partial, has long been associated with writing with the left hand and attributed to the fact that abductive writing, which most people find easier, is from right to left when people write with their left hand. However, recent research suggests another explanation: children who do not know the orientation of the letters and digits may apply an implicit right-writing rule which causes them to invert mainly left-oriented characters (e.g., J, 3). But would left-hand writers apply such a rule? The present study examines the relationship between these two explanations of mirror writing and asks whether they coexist in children who write with their left hand. Is the abductive writing explanation specific to mirror writing by left-hand writers and the implicit right-writing rule specific to right-hand writers? A comparison of 59 children who wrote with their left hand and 59 children who wrote with their right hand (matched for age and school experience) provided clear evidence against the abductive-writing explanation and in favour of the right-writing rule for both groups. Therefore, spontaneous mirror writing in typical 5- to 6-year-olds does not seem to be a function of preferred writing hand.
... The data compiled by Fischer and coworkers (Fischer & Koch, 2014, 2016aFischer & Tazouti, 2012) provide interesting material that has not yet been exploited for examining this issue. These data were gathered in naturalistic situations, as attending school is an almost universal part of growing up in France, the culture in which the data were collected. ...
... Encouraging R-L writing by applying spatial constraints, but without explicitly telling children to write from right to left, is far from always being productive. In order to obtain a sufficiently large sample, we combined data from three experiments (Fischer & Koch, 2014, 2016aFischer & Tazouti, 2012, Expt 2) in which children were encouraged to write their name from right to left. These three experiments involved 579 children, 349 of who wrote their name from right to left (generally in the condition encouraging R-L writing) and who were, therefore, potentially eligible for inclusion in our analysis sample. ...
... Data gathered by Fischer and coworkers (Fischer & Koch, 2014, 2016aFischer & Tazouti, 2012) offered an opportunity to examine, for the first time, which (capital) letters children in a L-R writing culture tend to reverse when they spontaneously write from R-L. The findings were very clear. ...
Recent research has established that 5- to 6-year-old typically developing children in a left–right writing culture spontaneously reverse left-oriented characters (e.g., they write [https://static-content.springer.com/image/art%3A10.1007%2Fs11145-016-9688-y/MediaObjects/11145_2016_9688_Figa_HTML.gif] instead of J) when they write single characters. Thus, children seem to implicitly apply a right-writing rule (RWR: see Fischer & Koch, 2016a). In Study 1, the reversal of all asymmetrical digits and capital letters by 356 children was modeled with a simple Rasch model, which describes reversal as the outcome of two competing responses, correct writing and writing in the cultural direction of writing. It accounts for the high frequency of reversals of the left-oriented characters (3, Z, J, 1, 2, 7, 9), as predicted by the RWR. Study 2 investigated letter reversals when children spontaneously write their name from right to left. Most of the 204 children in the study radically changed the direction of the RWR by reversing mainly the right-oriented letters (B, C, D, E, F, G, K, L, N, P, R, S). Hence, a more universal formulation of the RWR would be as an implicit rule orienting characters in the writing direction. This reformulated rule is consistent with the “spatial agency bias” model (Suitner & Maas, 2016), according to which writing direction affects thoughts and actions. Visual and motoric statistical learning may favor bootstrapping of the rule. Taken together, these data demonstrate the prominent role of culture in a phenomenon—character reversal or mirror writing—which has often been presented uniquely as biologically determined.
... The comparison between 59 children who wrote the characters and name with their left hand and 59 children matched for age and school-class who wrote the same material with their right hand showed no quantitative difference in mirror reversal between these two groups of children [42]. Also, given our distinction, the preceding study found no qualitative difference between children who write with their right hand and those who write with their left hand. ...
... One way to do this would be to compare mirror reversals in cultures with different writing directions, but this is not easy to do for a number of reasons (e.g., the characters may be different). Consequently, many researches [35,37,[41][42][43] applied a technique devised in [45] to observe spontaneous mirror writing of their name (or words) by young children. The technique consists of asking children to write their name on sheets of paper bisected by a vertical line, and to start writing at a dot near the bisecting line, sometimes to the left of the line and sometimes to the right. ...
Reversing characters (digits and letters) when writing, and complete mirror writing, raise one of the oldest and most mysterious questions in developmental and educational psychology: Why do five-year-old children write symbols (e.g., ꓱ for E) they have neither learnt nor seen? Attempts to draw up a complete explanatory theory of character reversal in writings by typically developing children were long hindered by the existence of a seemingly satisfactory explanation (left-hand writing), the failure to bring together research in neuropsychology and educational psychology, and the failure to consider the shape and structure of the characters. The present paper remedies this situation by describing a new, comprehensive theory based on recent neuropsychological findings and extensive empirical observations. The theory assumes that a character’s orientation, detected in the early visual processing area, is deleted (or made inaccessible) by the mirror generalization process during transfer to memory. Consequently, there is a period, usually around age five, during which children have representations of the characters’ shapes but not their orientations. Hence, when asked to write a character, children have to improvise its orientation, and the orientation they choose (implicitly, non-consciously) is often derived from the writing direction in their culture.
... Th e fact that writing hand is not the main explanation of mirror writing by typically developing children ( Fischer & Koch, 2016 ) is another important piece of evidence supporting the theory. Fischer and Koch compared writings of the asymmetrical digits, capital letters, and their name by 59 children who wrote spontaneously with their left hand and by 59 children matched for age and school year who spontaneously wrote with their right hand. ...
The French National Cohort of Children Study ( Etude Longitudinale Française depuis l'Enfance— ELFE) tested the literacy and numeracy skills of 4- to 5-year-old typically developing children in the second year of école maternelle . Tasks were administered by more than 4,000 teachers at schools across France. One of the study's numeracy tasks required participants to write the number of ducks (up to 5) they had counted. Analyzing the digits written by 14,904 children showed that miswritings were much more common for the digit 3 than for the digit 4. This result is consistent with the right-orienting rule, which young children in Western cultures apply when they do not know a digit's orientation, and which leads them to write, for example, ε instead of 3.The nature and frequency of miswritten digits did not differ significantly between the 466 children presumed to have written with their left hand and the 3,531 children presumed to have written with their right hand. However, a logistic mixed-effects regression showed that two other factors—age of entry to école maternelle and very early smartphone use—had a (modest) influence on the percentage of digits that were miswritten.
... Our patient's facility for mirror writing is consistent with children's facility, the latter being demonstrated by the numerous character reversals and by the speed of mirror writing [12,13]. The patient's mirror writing with the right hand as well the left hand is consistent with the finding that there was no difference in mirror writing between the children who spontaneously wrote with the left hand and those who spontaneously wrote with the right hand [14]. ...
BACKGROUND Mirror writing is unusual handwriting, in which the writing is in the opposite direction to normal, with reversed letters can be effortlessly read using a mirror. Studies reported that the condition can occur temporarily during the normal development of writing skills in children, and can also could occur in children with developmental delays. In adults, it can be acquired after a brain lesion. CASE REPORT A right-handed 19-year-old Saudi woman presented with progressive-onset mirror writing in both hands, and with writing both languages, Arabic and English. The condition was transient and had gradually worsened over the previous 3 years. Recently, it was continuous. She denied a history of alcohol or illicit drug abuse. There was no history of head injury, dyslexia, learning disabilities, or transient mirror writing during writing development in her early school-age years. There was no similar condition in her family. The neuropsychological assessment was normal. Laboratory and imaging were performed to rule out structural lesions, and no underlying etiology was found. After 2 years of follow-up, the patient did not have other associated neuropsychological symptoms, and mirror writing was persistent. CONCLUSIONS Mirror writing in this case was in the right-handed, healthy young woman and was idiopathic. The condition was benign and the 2-year follow-up neuropsychological assessment was normal. The patient lived with the condition, depending on computer typing instead of handwriting, and she had very good academic performance in the university. We suggest that physicians have to diagnose this condition by exclusion and reassure and support the patients to cope with the condition.
... Cependant, les preuves empiriques récentes chez l'enfant pré-lettré ne rapportent aucune différence entre les profils de latéralité concernant la prévalence des manifestations spontanées d'écriture en miroir de lettres ou de chiffres (e. g., Cubelli & Della Sala, 2009;Della Sala & Cubelli, 2007;Fischer, 2013;Fischer & Koch, 2016a;Simner, 1984). Par ailleurs, les résultats obtenus chez l'adulte divergent quant à l'implication de la dominance manuelle sur les paramètres cinématiques de la production d'écriture en miroir. ...
La directionnalité est une composante perceptivo-motrice et culturellement déterminée qui intervient de façon prééminente dans l’acquisition initiale de l’écriture. Cette thèse visait à apporter des données empiriques et des éclairages théoriques nouveaux sur 1) son évolution au cours du développement et, 2) sa contribution à la production et à la reconnaissance des formes de lettres. Ces deux axes de recherche ont été déclinés en cinq études. Une première étude investiguait le poids de l’influence culturelle sur la directionnalité graphique au long du développement. Elle permettait de comparer les performances de tracé chez des enfants âgés de 5 à 9 ans dans des conditions où des contraintes biomécaniques, syntaxiques et sémantiques variaient. Les résultats faisaient apparaître un renforcement de l’influence culturelle sur la directionnalité graphique à partir de 6 ans. Cependant, les enfants les plus âgés (9 ans) se montraient capables d’adopter des procédures plus flexibles et de se désengager de contraintes culturelles afin de satisfaire des contraintes contextuelles. La deuxième étude examinait l’évolution développementale de la directionnalité de l’écrit chez des enfants âgés de 4 à 11 ans en comparant la production de formes communes à l’écriture et au dessin. Les résultats obtenus mettaient en évidence une acquisition synchrone des invariants universels (i.e., l’écriture est uni-directionnelle) et des spécificités culturelles du système d’écriture (i.e., la langue est transcrite de gauche à droite). Dans le deuxième axe de recherche, deux études avaient pour objectif de mettre à l’épreuve des faits des hypothèses explicatives récentes de l’écriture en miroir dans l’acquisition initiale et typique de l’écrit. La comparaison de productions en temps réel et appariées d’écritures en miroir et d’écritures conventionnelles chez des enfants pré-lettrés révélait une implication majeure de la directionnalité de l’écrit et une invariance cinématique. Enfin, la dernière étude a permis de mettre en évidence, à l’aide d’un paradigme d’entrainement, une contribution de la directionnalité de l’écriture au rappel de l’orientation de lettres a été mise en évidence chez des enfants pré-lettrés. Les résultats obtenus sont discutés dans une approche incarnée de la cognition et des pistes pédagogiques sont amorcées.
... However, a growing body of studies in typically developing children have ruled out the previous assumptions. For instance, recent empirical studies have shown that letter reversals equally affected right and lefthanded children (Cubelli & Della Sala, 2009;Della Sala & Cubelli, 2007;Fischer & Koch, 2016a). Another major finding is that mirror writing is frequent among 3-to-7 year-old typically developed children (Fischer, 2011) and would not be specifically associated with school difficulties or further reading impairments (Johansson, 2005;Fischer & Tazouti, 2012). ...
In left-to-right writing cultures, spontaneous mirror writing of letters and digits in preliterate children appears more frequently on left-than right-facing characters. A compelling theory drawn on neuropsychological evidence of mirror generalization suggests that children resort to a right-orienting/writing rule when learning to write. The aim of the present study was to conceptually replicate and specify recent findings (Fischer, 2017a) on the predominant contribution of writing directionality to mirror writing in preliterate children. A training study was designed to compare on-line production of conventional versus mirror writing of 4-to-5 year-old French children (n = 30). Over a 4-week period, children were taught to write from memory words and digits. During a subsequent writing-from-memory task, a spatial constraint (Cornell, 1985) was imposed to elicit paired conventional and mirror writing of the words/digits. Spatial and kinematic data were recorded through the use of a digital pen. The results indicate a main contribution of writing directionality to letter and digit reversals. Furthermore, kinematic equivalence between conventional and mirror writing supports the neurological mirror generalization process in children. Overall, these results constitute a further illustration that the manifestation of mirror writing in typically developing children is culture-bound.
... Thus, the present result should not be ignored. However, it is not contradictory with the claim by Fischer and Koch (2016a). Many reasons can be put forward in support of this non-contradiction. ...
Recent research has found that children reverse mainly the left-oriented characters when writing from memory (e.g. they write ɩ and ε instead of J and 3). In order to obtain an objective definition of the left-orientation of a character, the ratings of the level of left-orientation of all the asymmetrical capital letters and digits by 142 adult students was analysed in Study 1. Study 2, on 298 five–six-year-old children, examined an immediate prediction of Study 1, namely that the children reverse mainly the digits that the adult students have rated left-oriented. Other predictions, both of the posited representation of the writing during the reversal stage and the neurological process of mirror generalisation, were verified: the simplicity of the representation of the symmetrical digits 0 and 8 makes incorrect writings very rare; the mirror generalisation, which operates only in the left–right direction, makes other transformations (inversion or 180° rotation) very rare. Finally, the explanatory power of some putative individual factors of reversal (e.g. writing with the left hand) is shown to be far lower than that of the left-orientation of the characters.
The writing attempts of children often feature mirror-reversals of individual letters. These reversals are thought to arise from an adaptive tendency to mirror-generalize. However, it is unclear whether mirror-writing is driven by mirror-generalisation of the visual letter forms, or of the actions for writing them. We report two studies of the relationship between mirror-writing and the ability to recognize whether a visually presented letter is in the correct orientation, amongst primary and preschool children learning to read and write in English. Children who produced more mirror-writing also made more orientation recognition errors, for uppercase (Study 1, n = 44) and lowercase letters (Study 2, n = 98), and these relationships remained significant when controlling for age. In both studies, the letters more often reversed in writing were also more prone to orientation recognition errors. Moreover, the rates of mirror-writing of different uppercase letters were closely similar between the dominant and non-dominant hands (Study 1). We also note that, in the recognition tasks, children were more likely to accept reversed letters as correct, than to reject correctly oriented letters, consistent with a tendency to mirror-generalize the visual letter forms. In every aspect, these results support a major role for visual representations in developmental mirror-writing.
When learning to write, children often mirror-reverse individual letters. For children learning to use the Latin alphabet, in a left-to-right writing culture, letters that appear to face left (such as J and Z) seem to be more prone to reversal than those that appear to face right (such as B and C). It has been proposed that, because most asymmetrical Latin letters face right, children statistically learn this general regularity and are subsequently biased to write any letter rightward. The evidence for this character-facing bias is circumstantial, however, because letter-facing direction is confounded with other factors that could affect error rates; for instance, J and Z are left-facing, but they are also infrequent. We report the first controlled experimental test of the character-facing bias. We taught 43 Scottish primary schoolchildren (aged 4.8-5.8 years) four artificial, letter-like characters, two of which were left-facing and two of which were right-facing. The characters were novel and so were not subject to prior exposure effects, and alternate groups of children were assigned to identical but mirror-reflected character sets. Children were three times more likely to mirror-write a novel character they had learned in a left-facing format than to mirror-write one they had learned in a right-facing format. This provides the first experimental confirmation of the character-facing bias in literacy development and suggests that implicit knowledge acquired from exposure to written language is readily generalized to novel letter-like forms.
Trajan’s Column in Rome (AD 113) was the model for a modest number of other spiral columns decorated with figural, narrative imagery from antiquity to the present day. Most of these wind upwards to the right, often with a congruent spiral staircase within. A brief introductory consideration of antique screw direction in mechanical devices and fluted columns suggests that the former may have been affected by the handedness of designers and the latter by a preference for symmetry. However, for the historiated columns that are the main focus of this article, the determining factor was likely script direction. The manner in which this operated is considered, as well as competing mechanisms that might explain exceptions.
A related phenomenon is the reversal of the spiral in a non-trivial number of reproductions of the antique columns, from Roman coinage to Renaissance and baroque drawings and engravings. Finally, the consistent inattention in academic literature to the spiral direction of historiated columns and the repeated publication of erroneous earlier reproductions warrants further consideration.
The present study examined the development of mirror writing in typically developing children using a longitudinal design involving 166 children initially aged 4–5 years. The children were tested three times, with approximately one year between tests. The main predictions were that: (i) mirror copying of characters at T1 (4- to 5-years old) will be less frequent than mirror writing from memory at T2 (5- to 6-years old), (ii) an implicit right-writing rule—which holds that children orient single characters toward the right and hence most frequently reverse the left-oriented characters (e.g., 3, J)—explains well both character reversal at T2 and T3 and changes between T2 and T3 (6- to 7-years old), and (iii) name-mirror writing is possible as soon as children start learning to write.
The mastering of handwriting is so essential in our society that it is important to try to find new methods for facilitating its learning and rehabilitation. The ability to control the graphic movements clearly impacts on the quality of the writing. This control allows both the programming of letter formation before movement execution and the online adjustments during execution, thanks to diverse sensory feedback. New technologies improve existing techniques or enable new methods to supply the writer with real-time computer-assisted feedback. The possibilities are numerous and various. Therefore, two main questions arise: 1-What aspect of the movement is concerned and 2- How can we best inform the writer to help them correct their handwriting? In a first step, we report studies on feedback naturally used by the writer. The purpose is to determine which information is carried by each sensory modality, how it is used in handwriting control and how this control changes with practice and learning. In a second step, we report studies on supplementary feedback provided to the writer to help them to better control and learn how to write. We suggest that, depending on their contents, certain sensory modalities will be more appropriate than others to assist handwriting motor control. We emphasize particularly the relevance of auditory modality as online supplementary feedback on handwriting movements. Using real-time supplementary feedback to assist in the handwriting process is probably destined for a brilliant future with the growing availability and rapid development of tablets.
Mirror writing in nursery and school-aged children was investigated using a novel approach. The motor hypothesis of mirror writing, which proposes that the non-dominant hand may be more adept at mirror writing, was assessed with dominant and non-dominant hand writing using a digitizing tablet. A measure of perceptual discrimination was used to investigate the relationship between mirror writing and the perceptual hypothesis, which states that unintentional mirror writing may be attributable to a form of perceptual confusion. Findings demonstrated a significant positive correlation between mirror writing and perceptual confusion, indicating that perception is the predominant driving factor in the majority of young children. Mirror writing was shown to decrease with age and as children grow older, motor factors gradually take over as a foundation for mirror writing. As children mature, these motor mechanisms gradually become governed by cognitive control strategies. In certain cases, brain damage may occur that disrupts these control strategies, producing unintentional mirror writing in adults. This developmental perspective of mirror writing considers it to be an inherent phenomenon and a normal part of writing development in children.
In 1861 Paul Broca discovered that, in most individuals, the left hemisphere of the brain is dominant for language. Taking language as an example, the first part of this book explains the normal development of bodily asymmetry and lateralization, its association with hand preference, genetic aspects, geographical differences and the influence of gender. The coverage then moves on to review the association between language lateralization and psychosis, describing findings in patients with schizophrenia to suggest the dominant hemisphere may fail to completely inhibit the language areas in the non-dominant half. The language allowed to 'release' from the right hemisphere can lead to psychotic symptoms including auditory verbal hallucinations and formal thought disorder. This book should be read by psychiatrists, neurologists and neuroscientists working in the field of psychosis and other brain scientists interested in laterality.
It has been claimed that left-handed individuals are better than right-handers at writing in a mirror script (R. Tankle & K. Heilman, 1983, Brain and Language, 19, 115-123). We tested this claim by comparing the mirror writing ability of normal right- and left-handed adults as a function of hand used and hand use order. Our results do not support the notion of a left-hander superiority in mirror writing since, in two different experiments, right-handed individuals were found to be as good as left-handers. Instead, we obtained evidence for an order effect such that in both experiments, mirror writing was faster in those who started the task with their right hand.
In one of his short stories, “The Plattner Story”, H. G. Wells tells about a secondary school teacher who was flung into the fourth dimension following an explosion caused by a chemical substance. After some time, the teacher managed to return to our world. It was then observed that he was transformed. As a consequence of his stay in the fourth dimension, the left and right halves of his body had been interchanged. His heart was now in the right side of his chest, while his liver was in the left side of his abdominal cavity. Indeed, all of his asymmetrical organs such as the duodenum, the caeccum, and the appendix had been transposed. In other words, he had what is sometimes called situs inversus. The transposition affected his paired body parts too. What used to be his right hand was now his left, and the same was true of his eyes, ears, and legs. As a result of the displacement, Plattner, who used to be right-handed, could now write only with his left hand. Moreover, with this hand, he wrote from right to left, i.e., he produced mirror-writing.
The present research was focused on a systematic developmental study of the left-right reversals in the writing of the digits by 5- to 7-year-old children. Children were asked to write, from memory (under dictation), the Arabic digits (1 to 9, but not in their naturalorder). The results of experiment 1 show that individual characteristics, fixed (ex., hand of writing, gender) or variable (ex., attentional load), do not explain the mirror-writings of the normal child. On the other hand, the same results suggest that mirror-writing is very sensitive to motor priming. Indeed, for a substantial proportion of 5-year-olds, results are consistent with the fact that the orientation of a digit is determined by the motor act which occurs just before. Thus, experiment 2 impressively shows that 3 is more often reversed when it follows a correct writing of 6 (63% of reversals for 3) than when it follows a reversal of 6 (23% of reversals for 3).
Mirror-writing is the production of letters, words or sentences in reverse direction, so that they look normal when viewed in a mirror. Some people may mirror-write intentionally; but unintentional mirror-writing is surprisingly common amongst young children, and in brain-damaged adults. Unintentional mirror-writing suggests a tension between a tendency for our brains to treat mirror-images as equivalent, and a culturally imposed need to distinguish between them for written language. This article explores the various manifestations of mirror-writing, and the ideas put forward to account for it.
Many studies confirm that preschoolers from left-to-right reading societies count from left to right, which reflects the cultural direction of their spatial-numerical associations (SNAs). Other factors, not directly related to cultural experience, have not yet been systematically examined as potential determinants of counting direction in preschool children. In this study, we test one such determinant, i.e. whether and how counting direction is related to body-centred reference frames, such as a preferred hand in different spatial-motoric settings. We first asked preschoolers to count spontaneously. Then, we asked them to use a particular hand to count objects presented close to or far away from their bodies. An overall left-to-right counting dominance was replicated, but it was modulated by a counting hand in both tasks: Children preferred to start counting from an object ipsilateral to the hand used. This pattern increased when stimuli were in a position close to the body. We conclude that early counting preferences of preliterate children are embodied. The SNAs which were assessed are not only related to culture but also to situated individual bodily reference frames.
Reversal errors play a prominent role in theories of reading disability. We examined reversal errors in the writing of letters by 5- to 6-year-old children. Of the 130 children, 92 had a history of difficulty in producing speech sounds, a risk factor for reading problems. Children were more likely to reverse letter forms that face left, such as and , than forms that face right, such as and . We propose that this asymmetry reflects statistical learning: Children implicitly learn that the right-facing pattern is more typical of Latin letters. The degree of asymmetry that a child showed was not related to the child’s reading skill at Time 2, 2¾ years later. Although children who went on to become poorer readers made more errors in the letter writing task than children who went on to become better readers, they were no more likely to make reversal errors.
Mirror writing is a striking behaviour that is common in children and can reemerge in adults following brain damage. Skilled deliberate mirror writing has also been reported, but only anecdotally. We provide the first quantitative study of skilled deliberate mirror writing. K.B. can write forward or backward, vertically upright or inverted, with the hands acting alone or simultaneously. K.B. is predominantly left handed, but writes habitually with his right hand. Of his writing formats, his left hand mirror writing is by far the most similar in style to his normal handwriting. When writing bimanually, he performs better when his two hands make mirror-symmetrical movements to write opposite scripts than if they move in the same direction to write similar scripts. He has no special facility for reading mirrored text. These features are consistent with prior anecdotal cases and support a motor basis for K.B.'s ability, according to which his skilled mirror writing results from the left hand execution of a low-level motor program for a right hand abductive writing action. Our methods offer a novel framework for investigating the sharing of motor representations across effectors.
Although the manuscript style of handwriting is taught to first graders in most American schools, few detailed analyses of the specific difficulties inherent in manuscript letter formation exist. As a result, instructional programs are planned without the benefit of knowledge from relevant research. To meet this need, the present investigation determined the relative difficulty of the 52 letter forms of the manuscript-style alphabet, the incidence of various types of error by letter form, and the relationship of errors to certain personal variables of first-grade children.
36 left-handed and 36 right-handed kindergarten children were asked to print after seeing a series of reversible letters and numbers presented individually on slides or flash cards. Regardless of handedness, both groups of Ss found the left–right orientation cues of the same letters and numbers difficult to recall. This challenges a proposal expressed in the "grammar of action" that claims that certain reversal errors in children's printing result from the inappropriate application of the horizontal motor rule, because although left- and right-handed children use this rule, they do so in different ways and therefore should have produced different errors. Another sample of 86 right-handed children from nursery school through Grade 1 was given the same printing task. Findings from this 2nd sample provide an additional challenge to the grammar of action by showing that reversals of the letter N, which are also thought to result from a misapplication of motor rules, decrease in frequency along with reversals of other letters and numbers, instead of increasing as predicted, during the developmental period when the motor rules that are said to be responsible for reversals of this particular letter become more strongly established. (21 ref)
This article presents a simple theory according to which the left-right reversal of single digits by 5- and 6-year-old children is mainly due to the application of an implicit right-writing or -orienting rule. A number of nontrivial predictions can be drawn from this theory. First, left-oriented digits (1, 2, 3, 7, and 9) will be reversed more frequently than the other asymmetrical digits (4, 5, and 6). Second, for some pairs of digits, the correct writing of the preceding digit will statistically predict the reversal of the current digit and vice versa. Third, writing hand will have little effect on the frequency of reversals, and the relative frequencies with which children reverse the asymmetrical digits will be similar regardless of children's preferred writing hand. Fourth, children who reverse the left-oriented digits the most are also those who reverse the other asymmetrical digits the least. An empirical study involving 367 5- and 6-year-olds confirmed these predictions.
A review of 81 titles on the incidence and the probable causation of this phenomenon, also on problems of handedness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
"The study of reading and writing reversals of public and private elementary school children under standard test conditions indicates a decline in frequency of the tendency in higher as contrasted with lower grades." No consistency in the tendency to make reversals is found, and the number of reversals in contrast to all other types of errors is infinitesimal. Some items are more subject to reversal than others. Left-handed and right-handed children make practically the same number of reversal errors. The results are discussed and interpreted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Most studies of mirror writing have focused on specific populations (e.g., pathological cases) or conditions (e.g., right-handed individuals writing with their left hand); hence, many simple questions about mirror writing in typically developing 5-year-old children remain unanswered. The present study addresses 2 simple but important issues concerning the relation between (a) mirror copying single characters (digits and capital letters) and mirror writing the same characters from memory and (b) mirror writing single characters and mirror writing whole words (e.g., 1st name). To shed light on these issues, the authors carried out 3 experimental studies of children at écoles maternelles in France. The results offer new insights into the phenomenon of mirror writing. A copying task generated considerably fewer mirror writings than a writing-from-memory task, and there was a significant but weak correlation (r
S = .22) between single-character mirror writing and name mirror writing. Academic level correlated positively with the mirror writing of characters (r
S = .15); however, it correlated more positively with correct writing (r
S = .32) and negatively with no (or other incorrect) writing (r
S = –.45). This suggests that the mirror writings may occur (depending on the context) between some other incorrect writings (or absence of writing) and correct writings in the development of almost all children. In addition, contextual or situational factors, such as the preceding writing or the position of the writing on the page, had a much stronger influence on mirror writing than individual factors, such as writing hand or gender. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Writing which appears rotated 180° about its normal horizontal axis and is legible when viewed in a mirror is called mirror writing. The occurrence of spontaneous mirror writing of whole words, rather than individual letter reversals, was tested in a large sample of children ranging in age from less than 3 to nearly 14 years. Spontaneous mirror-writing occurred in the majority of children between the ages of 3 and 7. It was concluded that spontaneous mirror writing occurs in all children at some time early in their experience of learning to print and write. It is suggested that this phenomenon is a normal component of development and does not imply dysfunction, as commonly assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Experimental evidence and illustrative cases are presented in the discussion of speech disturbances and difficulties in learning to read and write as associated with handedness. A third section deals with techniques for appraising handedness and other aspects of lateral dominance. (See
24: 4455.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
It has been reported that left-handed subjects are better able to write in mirror-reversed script than right-handers (Tankle & Heilman, 1983). Vaid and Stiles Davis (1989) conducted studies which led them to contradict the supposed superiority of left-handers in this area. In these studies, left as well as right-handed subjects were examined under normal- and mirror-writing conditions. Both examinations included the analysis of writing time and the accuracy of mirror writing (error rates). Using a digitizing tablet, we examined normal- and mirror-writing performance of left-handers, right-handers, and left-handed subjects who habitually write with their right hand. Our results support the finding of Tankle and Heilman (1983) that left-handers perform better in mirror-writing tasks.
Writing systems are usually studied in terms of the level of language that they represent, with little attention to the shapes that are used to do so. Those shapes are not random or accidental, however. They tend to be similar to one another within a script. Many of the Latin letters have a roughly vertical stem or
hasta
with an appendage or
coda
to the right. This arrangement is more common than one with the coda on the left of the hasta. We present data to show that young children are generally better at copying and writing from memory shapes such as and , which have the typical arrangement with the coda on the right, than those such as and , which do not. The results suggest that children start to learn about the statistics of the letter shapes before they know how or that these shapes represent language. Keywords: letter shapes; letters; statistical learning; Latin alphabet; reversal; left-right orientation; directionality; hasta-coda-structure
Typically developing 5- to 6-year-old children often reverse some digits (e.g., ɛ for 3) or single (capital) letters (e.g., Я for R) when they are required to write them under dictation. A theoretical approach to this phenomenon, based on an implicit right writing rule and that postulates an influence of the preceding writing, was tested in an experimental study of 300 children aged 5-6 years. The data support the implicit right writing rule and show the considerable influence of the preceding writing. For example, 73% of the children who correctly wrote the letter C mirror wrote an immediately following digit 3, whereas only 10% of the children who mirror wrote the letter C also mirror wrote an immediately following digit 3.
Mirror writing refers to the production of individual letters, whole words or sentences in reverse direction. Unintentional mirror writing has been observed in young children and brain-damaged people and interpreted as the manifestation of different cognitive impairments. We report on a mirror writing patient following left hemisphere stroke and the mirror writing phenomena in one sample of children learning to write. We propose a unitary account of mirror writing as the unavailability of the appropriate movement direction representation, either because the right configuration has yet to be specified fully (children learning to write) or because of its damage (acquired brain injury). For this reason, we propose that the lack of directional information relevant to writing be labelled 'directional apraxia'.
Mirror writing refers to the production of individual letters, whole words or sentences in reverse direction. Unintentional mirror writing has been observed in young children learning to write and interpreted as the manifestation of different cognitive impairments. We report on mirror writing instances in a sample of 108 pre-school children. Results showed MW to be age-related but independent from handedness and left-right discrimination abilities. We propose an account of mirror writing as reflecting dissociation between acquired motor programmes for letter shape composition and unspecified spatial direction of hand movements. Before learning to write, the child's directional cognitive system is assumed to be dichotomous, thus inducing the production of randomly oriented asymmetrical letters.
Abductive or adductive movements were made either towards single targets left or right of "home", or sequentially from target to target with various levels of advance information. In the former situation the preferred hand completed responses (movement time, MT) faster than the non-preferred, while the non-preferred hand initiated them faster (reaction time, RT); these effects were in both cases stronger with harder (knob turn) than with easier (touch) responses. Abductive responses (MTs, not RTs) were faster than adductive, especially with the preferred right hand. However in the sequential task adductive responses were the faster, consistently so by MTs, while with respect to time spent motionless at each target (down time, DT) more so with the non-preferred hand, and under conditions of maximal advance information. Findings were discussed in the contexts of movement complexity, hemispatial representation, and how advance information may be utilized in the resolution of directional uncertainty. There may be an evolutionary advantage in making complex manipulative responses adductively, close to the body, while reaches are usually made abductively, to the periphery of circumcorporeal space.
In Experiment 1 children (Kinder, 4-5 yr; Prep, 5-6 yr; Grade 1, 6-7 yr; Grade 2, 7-8 yr) bisected horizontal lines placed to the left, right or across the midline. The youngest groups displayed symmetrical neglect, erring to the left with the left hand and to the right with the right, the adult pattern of leftwards error not appearing until about Grade 2. However, while Prep, Grade 1 and Grade 2 sinistrals showed bigger between-hand differences than dextrals, this was not, unlike an earlier study, true of the youngest Kinder group, and symmetrical neglect did not appear to be peculiar to young sinistrals. A timed peg-moving task in Experiment II showed that performance did not slow when crossing the midline; nor did young sinistrals perform better with centrifugal abductive movement. These and other findings were incompatible with the idea of callosal immaturity in young sinistrals.
To determine whether normal left-handers were more adept than were normal right-handers at mirror writing, we tested right-handers and left-handers for their ability to mirror write. Independent of hand used, left-handers wrote mirror words (but not normal words) faster than did right-handers, which suggest that left-handers may be better able to reverse directions (left leads to right to right leads to left). Although when using their preferred hand, left-handers made fewer errors than did right-handers (using their preferred hand), the left hand both in right- and in left-handers was superior to the right hand. That the left hand was superior to the right is compatible with the hypothesis either that the right hemisphere contains mirror engrams or that movements away from the body are more accurate than movements toward the body or both.
Older and younger dextral subjects performed targeting movements to left and right with their preferred and nonpreferred hands upon a computer graphics tablet. Kinematic analysis revealed that older subjects produced larger constant errors than younger, paused more, and differed from younger individuals in a number of ways with respect to adductive/abductive asymmetries. The right hand was associated with shorter stroke durations and higher peak velocities, and both shorter times to peak velocity and from peak velocity to zero, suggesting superior ballistic preprogramming by the preferred right hand which was also more accurate. While both hands showed small abductive superiorities in terms of peak velocity and time from peak to zero, the largest directional asymmetries, stroke duration, showed leftward superiorities by both hands. We cannot therefore conclude either that experience with the rightward patterns of writing or that a reported tendency towards mirror-symmetrical movements by the two hands can account for the present results. Rather a right-hemisphere mediation of visually directed movements into left hemispace, along with a left-hemisphere mediation of fast, precise, temporal sequencing may jointly determine observable asymmetries. These may appear as a vector representing the opposing contributions of the two specialized hemispheres.
Two experiments investigated visual and proprioceptive recognition of cursive letters in young children. In Experiment 1, children aged 3-5 years were asked to recognize a visually presented target letter after a 3s inspection time, from among two distracters: a highly and a moderately similar letter. Visual letter recognition improved rapidly between 3 and 5 years and was a function of the "uniqueness" of letter shape and of letter frequency. In Experiment 2, children aged 4-6 years were asked to recognize a target letter from among 2 distracters, after having traced over the letter in a "blind" condition, with their hand guided by the experimenter. Proprioceptive recognition developed more slowly than visual recognition, and was not a function of letter frequency. The results are discussed in terms of integration versus differentiation of perceptual information, and of the tendency to base recognition on local rather than global similarity.
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