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PubMed2003

Comparing the effect of different design of desks with regard to motor accuracy in writing performance of students with cerebral palsy.

This study was conducted to examine the effect of ergonomic desk design for improving motor accuracy in the writing performance of cerebral palsy students. Thirty-two cerebral palsy students were tested in four workstations. The test order was randomized. Work surface design involved a regular work surface and a cutout work surface, and desk angle design included a horizontal desk top and a 20 degrees inclined desktop. The height of the desk and chair were adjusted relatively to each subject's height and popliteal height. Writing performance while using the four workstations were compared by administering the Motor Accuracy Test. Motor writing accuracy adjusted for speed was significantly better at the cutout work surface than at the regular work surface. Students with athetoid quadriplegia benefited more from the cutout surface. Although the inclined desktop was more appropriate for better vision and less neck flexion, there were no differences in accuracy scores and adjusted scores between the horizontal desk and the inclined desk. These findings support the hypothesis that the cutout work surface, which was accommodated to the anterior trunk, facilitates trunk control and provides forearm support in addition to improving writing performance.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1999

Changes of somatosensory evoked potentials during writing with the dominant and non-dominant hands.

Since close attention and special effort are necessary to perform difficult unskilled movements, particular brain activities underlying such movements could be expected to take place in the primary sensori-motor cortices (SI and MI). In this study we focused on such activities by analyzing the difference in the somatosensory evoked potential (SEP) in presence to the electrical stimulation of the median nerve during writing using the dominant and non-dominant hands in twelve right-handed and eight left-handed normal subjects. By alternately stimulating the right and left median nerves during the writing with either hand, SEPs were recorded from both hemispheres. During the dominant hand writing, the middle latency SEP components, i.e., parietal P25 and N33 and frontal N30, were significantly attenuated only in the hemisphere contralateral to the writing hand, corresponding to the conventional gating effect. During the non-dominant hand writing, not only those components recorded from the hemisphere contralateral to the writing hand, but also those from the hemisphere ipsilateral to the writing hand were significantly attenuated. In addition, N20 in the hemisphere contralateral to the writing hand was also significantly attenuated. There was no significant difference in the attenuation between the right-handed and left-handed subjects. The results indicated that the specific interaction between the signals after electrical stimulation and the sensory cortical activities related to the writing using the non-dominant hand occurred in both hemispheres, while it was recognized only in the hemisphere contralateral to the writing hand during the dominant hand writing. We speculate that the somatosensory cortex was more activated and thus interacted with the applied stimulation during the unskilled movement of the non-dominant hand compared to the movement of the dominant hand.

Adult↗

PubMed2005

The effect of explicit cultural bias on lateral preferences in Tunisia.

Hand, eye and foot preferences in Tunisia were examined in relation to age, gender and geographic location. We analyzed 1291 questionnaires from 653 men and 638 women, aged 8 to 74 years. Despite the cultural pressure against the use of the left hand for food-related activities, the overall frequency of left-hand writers (10.9%) was comparable to that found in the Western world. The frequency of left-hand writers was higher for subjects with one left-handed parent, and even higher for subjects with two left-handed parents than for subjects whose parents were right handed. The frequency of left-hand writers dropped to 5.9% in the older age-group; it was found to be higher in Tunis, the largest and most Occidental city, than in other cities, while left-hand eating was lower in the South than in the Center or in the North. The frequency of left-footers also dropped in the older age groups and was higher in Tunis than in other cities. Eye preference, consistency of preferred-hand use, crossed hand-eye laterality, crossed hand-foot laterality and gender-related differences in lateral preferences were all comparable to Western results. These data suggest that lateral preferences are partly influenced by a genetic factor, but that handedness (and to a lesser degree footedness) emerges from the intricate interaction of several factors including genetic and cultural influences.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2006

When Ciarli Ciaplin drives a Pejio' in Itali: writing loan words in a shallow language.

With increasing frequency the lexicon of every language incorporates words taken from other languages (loan words) that become of common use, but whose orthography does not necessarily conform to the rules of the native language. This is particularly true for languages like Italian, where most words can be correctly written by the application of a sublexical phonology-to-orthography conversion procedure. Here we report the case of a neurologically unimpaired, highly educated Italian person, with a specific deficit in writing loan words. The aim of the study is to clarify the nature of her dysgraphic impairment, if linked to a semantic deficit, or alternatively reflecting an acquisition deficit, present both in the phonological and orthographic output lexicons, or specific only for the orthographic lexicon. A qualitative analysis of her errors and a comparison with the performance of a group of age and education matched subjects showed that her error pattern was not an amplification of the task difficulty effect observed in the control subjects, but rather an expression of an impairment in acquiring specific writing procedures.

Adult↗

PubMed2000

Semantic priming in patients with Alzheimer and semantic dementia.

Semantic priming for pairs of words having semantic relation (members of the same category) but not associative relation was tested in four patients with mild Alzheimer-type dementia (AD), three patients with semantic dementia (SD) and three normal controls. Priming effects were exhibited by all the AD patients and normal controls but by none of the SD patients. The facilitation did not differ depending on whether words were written in kanji or kana. The nature of semantic deficits in AD and SD is discussed.

Aged↗

PubMed2005

Drawing from childhood experience: constructional apraxia and the production of oblique lines.

We report the performance of two patients (ECR and RA) with constructional apraxia on a drawing task previously used to test the development of planning abilities in children. Patients and controls were required to produce both oblique and horizontal/vertical lines that formed a right angle. Planning demands were manipulated across conditions by providing additional spatial information to constrain the drawing. Both patients produced drawings that were less accurate than controls. In addition, ECR was particularly poor at producing oblique lines compared to both RA and controls, even under conditions with minimal planning demands. This pattern of performance is qualitatively similar to that of children under eight years (see Broderick and Laszlo, 1988). Taken together these results provide further evidence that constructional apraxia is not a unitary disorder (with differential performance between patients) and that those differences are not necessarily related to laterality of damage (as both patients had right-hemisphere lesions). We argue for a more quantitative approach to the study of drawing abilities in neuropsychological testing in order to facilitate a finer grained analysis of the disorder and of comparison between patients.

Aged↗

PubMed1995

Hand motor performance and degree of asymmetry in monozygotic twins.

To determine whether the absolute degree of asymmetry of hand motor performance (irrespective of direction of this asymmetry) may have a heritable component we examined 20 pairs of monozygotic (MZ) twins of whom 10 pairs were concordantly right-handed (MZ-RR) and 10 pairs discordant for handedness (MZ-RL). The tests comprised measurements of the maximum left and right hand tapping rate as well as a paper-and-pencil test of left and right hand motor proficiency. Intraclass correlations within MZ-RR and MZ-RL for absolute degree of hand motor asymmetry were not significant. In contrast, significant intrapair correlations emerged for overall hand motor performance, a measure unrelated to laterality. These results demonstrate that at least in MZ twins the degree of hand motor asymmetry is mainly determined by non-genetic factors, whereas overall hand motor skill is more likely to be influenced by the genome. In addition, the lack of a difference in overall hand motor performance between MZ twins and 40 singletons studied as controls would not support hypotheses explaining behavioural asymmetry in twins, or their discordance for asymmetry, by developmental dysfunction.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Do "right-armed" lefthanders have different lateralization of motor control for the proximal and distal musculature?

Geschwind and Galaburda (1985) have suggested that specialization for the control of distal and proximal musculature might be located in different hemispheres in some individuals. Because inconsistent lefthanders (as defined by Ponton, 1987; Peters and Servos, 1989) tend to write with the left hand but throw with the right arm, and have a stronger right arm (Peters, 1990), it was thought that individuals in this group might provide evidence for the prediction made by Geschwind and Galaburda. This did not prove to be the case for tapping speed, where righthanders, inconsistent and consistent lefthanders all showed congruence. It appears that the question "are some left-handers right-armed?" can be answered only relative to specific activities.

Adult↗

PubMed1992

Discrepant oral and written spelling after left hemisphere tumour.

Repetition, reading, confrontation naming, and oral and written spelling were studied in a 57 year-old man with a left hemisphere tumour. These tasks were repeated over a period of two weeks when the patient was being treated for brain oedema prior and subsequent to neurosurgical intervention. In the context of intact repetition and good reading, the most striking finding was a significant qualitative and quantitative discrepancy between oral and written spelling, with the latter task more severely affected. The pattern on oral spelling was that of lexical (or surface) agraphia. On written output, however, orthographic errors predominated. The relatively greater impairment of written spelling was not secondary to a motoric or visuo-spatial deficit. The observed patterns are not easily accommodated by current models of writing.

Agraphia↗

PubMed1985

Problems in the assessment of hand preference.

Hand preference for the original items proposed by Oldfield (1971) and information concerning age, sex, familial sinistrality were obtained from a population of 1694 subjects. An item analysis was performed which resulted in the elimination of some of the items. Handedness distribution derived on the basis of the selected items was compared with the distribution obtained on the basis of the Oldfield's selection. Results show that handedness distributions depend on item selection, familial sinistrality and age, while no effect of sex is found.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1971