Influence of spatial perception abilities on reading in school-age children

A meta-analysis of the line bisection task in children

Meta-analyses have shown subtle, group-level asymmetries of spatial attention in adults favouring the left hemispace (pseudoneglect). However, no meta-analysis has synthesized data on children. We performed a random-effects meta-analysis of spatial biases in children aged ≤16 years. Databases (PsycINFO, Web of Science & Scopus) and pre-print servers (bioRxiv, medRxiv & PsyArXiv) were searched for studies involving typically developing children with a mean age of ≤16, who were tested using line bisection. Thirty-three datasets, from 31 studies, involving 2101 children, were included. No bias was identified overall, but there was a small leftward bias in a subgroup where all children were aged ≤16. Moderator analysis found symmetrical neglect, with right-handed actions resulting in right-biased bisections, and left-handed actions in left-biased bisections. Bisections were more leftward in studies with a higher percentage of boys relative to girls. Mean age, hand preference, and control group status did not moderate biases, and there was no difference between children aged ≤7 and ≥7 years, although the number of studies in each moderator analysis was small. There was no evidence of small study bias. We conclude that pseudoneglect may be present in children but is dependent on individual characteristics (sex) and/or task demands (hand used).Registration: Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/n68fz/).

Visuospatial bias in line bisection in Williams syndrome

BACKGROUND

Recently, a study using the subjective straight-ahead task showed that individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) present a bias in the representation of body perception. The aim of the present study is to examine the horizontal midline body representation in WS participants using the bisection line task, which is an important benchmark for an egocentric frame of reference.

METHOD

Fifteen WS participants (mean age = 21.7 ± 9.5 years) were compared with two typical development control groups: one composed of 15 participants matched on chronological age and one composed of 15 children matched on mental age. The task consisted of dividing each line in a series of 18 lines into two equal halves by drawing a vertical mark with a pencil in the centre of the line.

RESULTS

Individuals with WS presented a significant leftward bias in comparison to mental age and chronological age groups.

CONCLUSIONS

The leftward deviation in WS could be linked to the body representation bias and difficulties in the development of the egocentric reference system. An early detection of such deviation should help in the development of targeted interventions for WS individuals to improve visual-spatial skills and learning.

The development of body representations in school-aged children

Following the triadic taxonomy, three different body representations do exist, namely the body semantics, the body structural representation and the body schema. The development of these body representations has been widely investigated in toddlers, but several issues remain to be addressed in school age. To assess age- and gender-related changes in different body representations and to investigate the presence of different patterns of interplay between these representations of the body, 90 children (age range: 7-10) and 37 young adults (age range: 18-35) were given tasks assessing the body semantics, the body structural representation and the body schema as well as control tasks. The present results suggested that the body schema, evaluated by means of hand laterality judgments, was still not completely developed in school-aged children, whereas the body structural representation reached an adult-like pattern by the age of 9-10 years. Finally, body semantics was fully developed in school-aged children. These findings were discussed in terms of their theoretical implications, for a better understanding of body representation development; also, implications for clinical assessment of body representation disorders were discussed.