title: Motor correlates of dichotic listening asymmetries in children.
abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine the predictive relation between incidence of unintended motor overflow and degree of asymmetry on a dichotic word identification task in children. Seventy-eight third grade girls and 67 fifth grade boys were seen longitudinally over a 2-yr period. Among girls, incidence of overflow, primarily contralateral, accounted for nearly 20% of the variance in dichotic listening scores; but the results were not reliable for boys. The findings support the contention that suppression of the non-dominant hemisphere is an important mechanism underlying dichotic listening performance.
mesh_terms: D001288:Attention; D002648:Child; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009048:Motor Skills; D012737:Sex Factors; D013067:Speech Perception