Lateralization left out: the interconnections between language, motor skills, executive function, and social skills in preschool children

Abstract

The goal of this thesis is to investigate the role of hand preference in preschool development using comprehensive measures to assess five dimensions: lateralized hand use, language, fine motor skills, executive function, and social competence. Early right-hand preference has been linked to better cognitive skills, but rarely studied comprehensively alongside multiple assessments of child cognitive abilities. I conducted three studies with two general goals; examine the relationship between hand preference and the four other dimension, and compare the relationships between all five areas using a single cohort of children. I found that hand preference had a small effect on child cognitive performance whereas social competence consistently appeared as a predictor of success for each cognitive skill. This result suggests that programs and interventions for enhancing cognitive function should place special emphasis on social competency.