title: Season of birth and handedness in Serbian high school students.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Although behavioural dominance of the right hand in humans is likely to be under genetic control, departures from this population norm, i.e. left- or non-right-handedness, are believed to be influenced by environmental factors. Among many such environmental factors including, for example, low birth weight, testosterone level, and maternal age at birth, season of birth has occasionally been investigated. The overall empirical evidence for the season of birth effect is mixed.
  
  
  METHODS
  We have investigated the effect of season of birth in an epidemiologically robust sample of randomly selected young people (n = 977), all born in the same year. A Kolmogorov-Smirnov type statistical test was used to determine season of birth.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Neither the right-handed nor the non-right-handed groups demonstrated birth asymmetry relative to the normal population birth distribution. There was no between-group difference in the seasonal distribution of birth when comparing the right-handed to the non-right-handed groups.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The present study failed to provide support for a season of birth effect on atypical lateralisation of handedness in humans.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Hygiene and Medical Ecology, School of Medicine, University of Belgrade, Serbia.
authors.forename: Sanja
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Milenković
authors.affiliation: School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Western Australia, Australia.|Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry, Graylands Hospital, Western Australia, Australia.
authors.forename: Daniel
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rock
authors.affiliation: School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Western Australia, Australia.|Centre for Clinical Research in Neuropsychiatry, Graylands Hospital, Western Australia, Australia.
authors.forename: Milan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dragović
authors.affiliation: School of Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, University of Western Australia, Australia.
authors.forename: Aleksandar
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Janca