Thesis (M.A. Rel.)--Anderson School of Theology, 1987. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-75).

This study sought to discover the relationship of torque to the academic performance and other variables of children from five to eight years old. Torque was defined as the production of clockwise circles during a writing task. The phenomenon was first reported by Theodore Blau (1977) who proposed that children who torqued past a certain age were predisposed to problems both academic and behavioural. To measure the torquing propensities of children, Blau developed a Torque Test which had children produce six circles around X's (⊗), three with the preferred hand and three with the non-preferred hand. The present study used the preferred writing hand only and two torque tests, the Circling Directionality Test developed by the researcher using an embedded task to detect torquing and a modified form of Blau's Torque Test. Variables of academic achievement, age, sex, point of circle commencement, laterality, neuromuscular motor, control , test comparisons, and circling directionality were analysed. The population for the study consisted of 300 regular classroom children ages five to eight. Seventy-five children per grade were randomly selected by age from grade levels K-3. Significant relationships between torquing and low academic achievement were only found for the eight year old group who also had a higher incidence of left-handedness and crossed hand/foot laterality. Significantly more boys torqued than girls. As well, those who torqued in most instances commenced their circles at the bottom. Predictably significant relationships were found for hand and foot, but only left-handedness was significantly related to torque. No significant relationships could be found for measures of eyedness. Both tests used to measure torque were equally effective. The rapidity of circle construction did not alter the pattern of torquing in the children. There was a significant relationship between age and torquing with over 50% of the five year olds torquing with the preferred hand; by age eight this incidence had been reduced to 8% of the population. Torquing was then seen as a developmental trait found in a large percentage of five and six year olds but by age eight it was indicative of academic school difficulties. Recommendations for further study of the torquing phenomenon were made. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

Thesis (BEd)-- Stellenbosch University, 1944 / Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Education. Dept. of Educational Psychology. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Activities such as throwing are, as a rule, carried out only with the better arm. Mostly this one-sided execution is due to mere convenience. If attempts are made to justify it, in the main two arguments are advanced: In the first place, it is taken for granted that the inferior arm cannot make appreciable progress anyway, and it is therefore considered as not worthwhile exercising it. In the second place, it is believed that, if the inferior arm should improve by such a practice, this happens at the expense of efficiency in general, and may have detrimental consequences in some regards or other. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: geen opsomming

The purpose of this project is to develop a website that helps left handed students, their parents, and teachers to help left-handers, whether they are left-or-right-brain dominant, succeed. This website will be a tool to get to know their children and students better. The project consists of a paper and a website to educate about left-handed people.

M.A. (Psychology) / The motivation for this research arose from the fact that very little if any empirical research has been done in connection with the cognitive abilities of persons with right hemispheric language representation. Knowledge of the structural and functional correlates of hemispheric asymmetry has thus far been obtained primarily from people with left hemispheric language representation. A further motivation was that the existing knowledge about hemispheric asymmetry has been obtained mainly from studies of patients with brain damage...

Since the face forms over the brain in the course of embryonic development, facial anthropometry may reflect brain structure. The motor functions of each side are controlled by the side of the brain opposite the body side. The purpose of this study was to establish whether a correlation exists between handedness and the location of the external auditory meatuses, as a possible consequence of brain asymmetry. Facial photographs were taken of 78 volunteers. Straws, placed in the external ear canals, were used to mark the external auditory meatuses. The level of the top of each meatus was measured from each volunteer's visual plane, as established by connecting the center of a point of reflected light in each pupil. Each volunteer was also given the Edinburgh Laterality Inventory (Durden-Smith and DeSimone, 1984:53) to determine "true" handedness (50 right-handers and 28 left-handers). Right-handers, as determined by either writing hand or laterality inventory, were found to exhibit a greater tendency for the left auditory meatus to be lower. Specifically, 68% of the right-handers, as opposed to 39% of the left-handers, exhibited a left external auditory meatus located at a lower position on the skull than the right meatus. This was significant at the 0.05 level. The differences in external auditory meatal distances from the visual plane were greater on the left in right-handers 68% of the time, equal 10%, and greater on the right 22% of the time. A reverse correlation for the right asymmetry for left-handers was not found. Instead, for the left-handed sample a nearly even distribution for meatal location was found: 39% left asymmetry, 29% symmetry, and 32% right asymmetry.The study strongly supported the hypothesis that right-handers have a significant tendency for left asymmetry in location of the external auditory meatuses. The study did not support the hypothesis that the meatal asymmetry correlates to the side opposite the handedness of the individual. Of-perhaps greater significance is the finding that the percentages of left asymmetry of both groups match the brain asymmetry percentages found by Galaburda (1984:15) for the planum temporale, an extension on the upper surface of the temporal lobe of the brain. The level of the external auditory meatuses, as a reflection of brain asymmetry, may serve as an external measurement of the location of Wernicke's area which is located near the planum temporale and has a major role in speaking and comprehension of the spoken word and in reading and writing. Simple techniques for locating the language centers of the brain would be an advantage in developing education plans and teaching strategies for students with each of the possible hemispheric dominance patterns. / Department of Anthropology

A name identity task was used to assess the language processing abilities of the right hemisphere of the brain. Ten undergraduates participated in each of three experimental conditions; nouns presented below threshold, nouns presented above threshold and verbs presented above threshold. Significant priming effects occurred when a picture of a noun or verb was presented above threshold and followed by a word which named the picture. The priming effect for nouns presented below threshold was not significant. No hemispheric asymmetries were found for the recognition of nouns or verbs.

No description available.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1990. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [187]-208).

Thesis (M.S.)--Kutztown University of Pennsylvania, 1992. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2717. Abstract precedes thesis as 2 preliminary leaves. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-54).