Hand preference and Mathematical Learning Difficulties: New data from Greece, the United Kingdom, and Germany and two meta-analyses of the literature

ABSTRACT

Increased rates of atypical handedness are observed in neurotypical individuals who are low-performing in mathematical tasks as well as in individuals with special educational needs, such as dyslexia. This is the first investigation of handedness in individuals with Mathematical Learning Difficulties (MLD). We report three new studies (N = 134; N = 1,893; N = 153) and two sets of meta-analyses (22 studies; N = 3,667). No difference in atypical hand preference between MLD and Typically Achieving (TA) individuals was found when handedness was assessed with self-report questionnaires, but weak evidence of a difference was found when writing hand was the handedness criterion in Study 1 (p = .049). Similarly, when combining data meta-analytically, no hand preference differences were detected. We suggest that: (i) potential handedness effects require larger samples, (ii) direction of hand preference is not a sensitive enough measure of handedness in this context, or that (iii) increased rates of atypical hand preference are not associated with MLD. The latter scenario would suggest that handedness is specifically linked to language-related conditions rather than conditions related to cognitive abilities at large. Future studies need to consider hand skill and degree of hand preference in MLD.

KEYWORDS:

• ALSPAC
• meta-analysis
• handedness
• mathematical abilities
• PC mouse preference

Acknowledgements

We are deeply grateful to the researchers Dr Kucian and Dr McCaskey for sharing unpublished data with us. We would also like to thank Dr Jovanović who kindly translated their study in English for us. Finally, we thank Dr Orly, Dr Bucca, and Dr Ansari for their kind reply to our requests. We are extremely grateful to all the families who took part in this study, the midwives for their help in recruiting them, and the whole ALSPAC team, which includes interviewers, computer and laboratory technicians, clerical workers, research scientists, volunteers, managers, receptionists and nurses.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Datasets and analysis codes have been uploaded in the Open Science Framework repository (https://osf.io/wqf7j/).

Additional information

Funding

SP and FA are funded by the Royal Society. The UK Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust (Grant ref: 217065/Z/19/Z) and the University of Bristol provide core support for ALSPAC. This publication is the work of the authors and Silvia Paracchini will serve as guarantors for the reporting of the ALSPAC analysis in this paper. A comprehensive list of grants funding is available on the ALSPAC website (http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/external/documents/grant-acknowledgements.pdf).