ABSTRACT
Although the connection between atypical brain lateralization and developmental disorders has been subject of research for nearly a century, both the nature and the significance of this connection are still unclear, which has triggered additional studies to unveil the vague and controversial aspects of this issue.
The book describes an innovative research conducted by the author: using uniform research methods such as dichotic verbal perception task and lateral preferences performance tests, the author has examined hemispheric asymmetries in the subtypes of developmental stuttering, developmental dyslexia, mild non-syndromic intellectual disability and autism spectrum disorder in four separate studies.
In the introduction, the author presents the design of these studies followed by a brief description of the book chapters’ content.
Based on the research results, the author comes up with two main assumptions: the first, that atypical language lateralization may act as a causal factor for the emergence only of certain subtype(s) of developmental speech, language or literacy disorders, and the second, that in developmental disorders that are not essentially linguistic in nature but have comorbid early language impairment, the lack of normal cerebral lateralization could be causally associated with the comorbid language deficit rather than with the developmental disorders themselves.
