There Are Indeed More Left-Handers Within the Autism Spectrum Disorder Compared with in the General Population, but the Many Mixed-Handers Is the More Interesting Finding

Anne Langseth Rysstad; Arve Vorland Pedersen

doi:10.1007/s10803-018-3553-6

There Are Indeed More Left-Handers Within the Autism Spectrum Disorder Compared with in the General Population, but the Many Mixed-Handers Is the More Interesting Finding

J Autism Dev Disord. 2018 Sep;48(9):3253-3255. doi: 10.1007/s10803-018-3553-6.

Authors

Anne Langseth Rysstad¹, Arve Vorland Pedersen²

Affiliations

¹ Special Section for Intellectual Disabilities and Autism Spectrum Disorders, Vestre Viken HF, Lier, Norway.
² Department of Neuromedicine and Movement Science, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491, Trondheim, Norway. arve.v.pedersen@ntnu.no.

PMID: 29594926
DOI: 10.1007/s10803-018-3553-6

Abstract

Letter to the editor in response to Howard Kushner's claims that our data on non-right-handedness within the autism spectrum disorder were organized, by sleight of hand, so they would give a significant result that would support our desired conclusion. Here, we have re-categorized our data, and present evidence that there are indeed more left-handers within the ASD. Furthermore, we refute claims that we have misinterpreted our results in order to conclude about a causal link between left-handedness and ASD, and highlight our original suggestion that mixed-handedness, more specifically unclear handedness, is the bigger problem, and that our findings of a total 60% non-right-handedness was the more interesting finding.

Keywords: Ambilateral; Hand dominance; Hand preference; Laterality.

Publication types

Letter