Desempenho na grafia e na direção grafológica em função da postura e da dominância manual em destros e canhotos em famílias de renda baixa e média

• Autor(a) principal: SILVEIRA, Francisca Morais da
• Data de Publicação: 2007
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Repositório Institucional da UFPA
• Texto Completo: http://www.repositorio.ufpa.br:8080/jspui/handle/2011/1792
• topic: CNPQ::CIENCIAS HUMANAS::PSICOLOGIA::PSICOLOGIA EXPERIMENTAL; Esquerda e direita (Psicologia); Destrismo e sinistrismo; Escrita; Grafologia

There are three distinct theories that seek to explain the origin of the inverted hand posture (IHP) in left-handers. McKeevers genetic model assumes that the trait is sex-linked, tied to maternal transmission via the X-chromosome, which accounts for the higher prevalence of IHP among males. According to the pathological model, the IHP stems from neuropathological factors, whereas the technical adaptation theory views it as a manual adaptation for coping with abductive demands implicit in the Roman writing system. Many adherents of the latter theory regard the posture as maladaptive, leading to physical problems and illegible script; they recommend that the noninverted posture be used. A previous study was conducted among 96 lower-income adolescents, 48 left- and 48 righthanded, subdivided by sex and writing posture. This investigation extended that study by evaluating an additional 106 students from middle income families, 64 right- and 66 lefthanders. The main objectives were to ascertain whether the IHP was associated with physical problems, birth complications, different patterns of graphological direction and inferior calligraphic performance, as well as to verify whether these characteristics varied with socioeconomic status. As a whole, the findings showed no relationship between IHP, physical and pre-natal problems. On the graphological stimuli, IHP left-handers, more so than noninverters and dextrals tended to draw horizontal lines right-to left; however on other drawing tasks they did not differ from the other groups. On the cursive and printed writing task, females consistently outperformed males. Left-handers committed more errors when printing, but not when In general writing cursively. Response time was the only dependent variable related to socioeconomic status: Middle class students wrote and printed sentences faster than lower-class students. In general, these results do not support the contention that the IHP causes physical problems or inferior calligraphic performance, and thus do not justify attempts to oblige left-handers to adopt the noninverted posture.