Cognitive-academic correlates of finger localization in right-handed kindergarten girls

The scores of 49 right-handed girls in early kindergarten on a battery of finger localization tests were compared with their end-of-year achievement scores on the Metropolitan Readiness Tests. Examination of the correlations between performance with each hand and test measures of achievement favored a substantive role for each cerebral hemisphere in early acquisition. Strength of prediction was comparable for tasks with and without a naming requirement (numerical coding of fingers) and was independent of children's verbal-receptive ability on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. Apparently, differential hemispheric efficiency presumed to underlie left-right differences in finger localization is not closely related to level of academic skills in girls of kindergarten age.