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Infants' block banging at midline: Evidence for Gesell's principle of ‘reciprocal interweaving’ in development
Author(s) -
Ramsay Douglas S.
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
british journal of developmental psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.062
H-Index - 75
eISSN - 2044-835X
pISSN - 0261-510X
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-835x.1985.tb00985.x
Subject(s) - babbling , psychology , reciprocal , developmental psychology , hand preference , laterality , philosophy , linguistics
Infants' ability to bang two blocks together at midline was assessed at weekly intervals for the 14‐week period following the onset of duplicated syllable babbling. Block banging was first observed in some infants a few weeks after babbling onset and became frequent by 7–10 weeks after this onset. A previous study reported that the unimanual hand preference for manipulation and/or banging shown by these infants underwent two fluctuations during this period with troughs on average four and again eight weeks after babbling onset. Inspection of the data for individual infants suggested that block banging emerged or became frequent with the resolution of the first fluctuation in unimanual handedness. This relation implicates a process like Gesell's ‘reciprocal interweaving’ in the development of hemispheric specialization for motoric control—specifically, the development of the dominant hemisphere's control over the non‐preferred hand.