Left-handedness and achievements in foreign language studies

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Psychology
• Educational Psychology

Background:

• Brain lateralization studies suggest differences in language-motor functions between left-handers and right-handers.
• Previous research on language and reading deficits in left-handers yielded inconclusive results.
• No prior studies have investigated handedness differences in foreign language academic achievement.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine academic achievements in English as a foreign language among left-handed and right-handed native Hebrew speakers.
• To identify specific difficulties encountered by left-handed learners in foreign language acquisition.

Main Methods:

• Comparison of academic placement and performance in English classes between left-handed and right-handed pupils.
• Assessment of difficulties in applying orthographic-phonological mapping rules in reading English words and pseudowords.
• Correlation analysis between reading difficulties and word recognition task performance.

Main Results:

• Left-handed pupils were disproportionately placed in lower-level English classes compared to right-handers.
• Left-handers exhibited significantly more difficulties with orthographic-phonological mapping in English reading.
• These reading difficulties in left-handers did not correlate with their general word recognition abilities.

Conclusions:

• Left-handedness is associated with inferior performance in learning English as a foreign language.
• Difficulties in foreign language acquisition for left-handers may stem from varied processing failures, impacting orthography-phonology mapping or word production precision.
• Further research is needed to understand the nuanced cognitive mechanisms underlying these differences.