Lateral choices of hand, eye and foot in children of a primary school of Bologna, Italy

This study examined lateral choices in use of hands, feet and eyes in a group of 209 schoolchildren living in Bologna, Italy. Nine tasks were used: six for the hands, two for the feet and one for the eyes. The purpose was to identify similarities and differences, among different tasks, through performance tests. Frequency and percentage of the answers for each task are reported, and the left-choice percentage obtained from the hierarchical cluster analysis for binomial data. Results show different left-handed percentage among the tasks regarding stepping foot and eye tasks compared to the manual items All the differences between right- and left-handed choices are statistically significant (binomial test p<0.001). The left-handers differences between the genders and the two ages result not significant with chi-squared test (p>0.05). Finally the calculation of a synthetic index of laterality is proposed.