Development of handedness and other lateralized functions during infancy and early childhood

Using a historical or “development from” approach to study the development of hand-use preferences in infants and children, we show how various sensorimotor experiential events shape the cascade from initial to subsequent hand-use preferences. That cascade represents, creates, and shapes the lateralized asymmetry of neural circuits in the cerebral hemispheres. The control of the preferred hand requires neural circuits in the contralateral hemisphere that are capable of processing the organization of finely timed, sequentially organized movements and detecting haptic information derived from high-frequency transitions in the stimulus. We propose that the lateralized differences in these neural circuits underlie processes contributing to the development of other forms of hemispheric specialization of function. We show how the development of hand-use preferences contributes to the development of language skills, tool use, spatial skills, and other cognitive abilities during infancy and early childhood. Such evidence supports the proposal of Michael Corballis that the phylogeny of human language emerged during the evolution of hominins from the co-option of those neural circuits employed in the expression of manual skills involved in tool use, tool manufacture, and communication. Finally, we summarize evidence from children with cerebral palsy, which shows that their difficulties with sensorimotor processing, visuomotor coordination, anticipatory motor planning, and other cognitive abilities may stem from disturbances in the development of their hand-use preferences and hence the functional specialization of their hemispheres.