Infants' hand preferences for actions and gestures

Abstract

Infants aged 8–15 months were video taped while interacting with their mothers. From these video tapes, frequencies of use of the left and right hands by infants and their mothers for picking up objects and for communicative gestures (offering objects, pointing, and other gestures) were recorded. The results demonstrate that infants show right‐hand preferences for both actions on objects and for gestures used in interacting with other people. These hand preferences did not change across the range of ages studied and did not differ from overall hand preferences shown by the infants' mothers. Right‐hand preferences for infants' gestures probably reflect left cerebral involvement in the early stages of language acquisition.