Early lateral preferences and mental processing trends in black preschoolers.
Date
1998
Authors
Jansen, Carmel Patricia
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Abstract
The current study adopts a developmental neuropsychological perspective, an approach
which does not imply brain dysfunction but rather the principle of understanding the general
relationship hetween brain growth and behavioural changes and the effect of environmental
factors in children. A neuropsychology of normal development would seem to be an
appropriate initial prerequisite if we are to understand the effects of brain insult or disease
in the developing child. A modest aim was to acquire a fundamental understanding of
emerging skills in black preschool children, starting with the most basic, the development of
lateral preferences. This area was selected (a) as a departure point because of its location
within the broad area of cerebrallateralization and (b) the opportunity it provided to explore
the children's mental processing skills within the same theoretical perspective.
The purpose of the present study was the longitudinal investigation of lateral preferences
in a sample of Soweto children at three and five years.and information processing skills in
the same sample at five years. Three hundred and thirty-five children, 170 girls and 165
boys, were sampled with the assistance of the Birth to Ten project.a longitudinal study of
growth, health and development of children living in the Johannesburg Metropolitan area over
a ten year period, 1990 to 2000. The children were assessed prior to starting school in
January, 1996. A descriptive approach was adopted in explaining the patterns of handedness,
footedness and eyeness. The findings showed that the patterns for handedness reflected the
expected rightward direction at both ages although the degree to which preference has oeen
established was weaker at five years than that reported in other studies with children of
similar ages. Thirty-nine percent of the sample were mixed-handed at five years,only 3%
were mixed-footed and 5% showed mixed-eyeness,
At five years Simultaneous and Sequential information processing skills were assessed
with the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC). Factor analysis revealed a two
factor solution broadly supporting the presence of the two processing styles. However the two
coding processes were differentially distributed throughout the sample showing significant
differences. More specifically.it was found that 34% of the children presented profiles of both
processing styles that were below the group mean;31 % showed profiles where one or other
coding style was below the group mean;23 % of the children portrayed processing profiles
above the group mean. Thirty-nine children (12 %) presented patterns of processing that were
above the group mean but were highly developed in one or other processing style. Each of
the profiles that emerged were grouped and considered separately.
Cognitive tasks involving verbal fluency, naming skills,draw-a person,basic perceptual
knowledge,basic literacy.plus lateral preference information such as handedness direction,
handedness consistency and handedness skills were appended to all the groups. Low scores
in processing styles were found to be associated with poor verbal skills, low mental age,poor
perceptual and basic literacy knowledge,poor hand skill performance,and greater (but nonsignificant)
numbers of mixed-handers. The lowest scoring group also contained the majority
of male left-handers. One of the highest scoring groups showed the strongest lateralizing
patterns although the numbers were small (n= 11). Girls with above average sequential skills
also scored highly on verbal fluency (p < .05) and hand skills (p < .05). Boys in this group
showed the strongest degree of right-handedness (p < .05). In the four lower performance
groups,background variables such as type of preschool experience (p <.001),the presence of
books in the home (p < .05) and mothers level of education (p <.001) were found to be
significant. A regression model which incorporated environmental, epigenetic, cognitive and
motoric factors was found to be the most viable in predicting processing skills.
Description
A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Arts,
University of the Witwatersrand
in fulfilment of the requirements
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Keywords
Blacks -- Education -- South Africa., Education, Preschool, Nursery schools -- South Africa.