Speech lateralization in young children as determined by an auditory test.

Abstract

Spoken digits were presented to children in such a way that different digits arrived simultaneously at the 2 ears. Previous studies with adults had shown that digits arriving at the right ear are more accurately reported than digits arriving at the left; this effect depends on the fact that speech is represented in the left hemisphere. The present study demonstrated the right-ear effect for boys and girls as early as age 4. Boys achieved lower total scores than girls at the early ages. These findings suggest that the left hemisphere is dominant for speech by age 4, for both sexes, but boys nevertheless lag behind girls in development of speech perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)