Hand preference consistency and fine motor performance in young children.

Recent investigations suggest that children who establish handedness early are better coordinated than those who lack this characteristic. To test this assumption, 160 4- to 6-year-olds were classified by consistent (established) and inconsistent (mixed) hand preference behavior and tested for fine motor performance using a finger tapping task. Analysis of the data revealed no significant differences existed between groups in finger tapping performance in relation to total sample, age or sex. Thus, contrary to recent reports, children with consistent and inconsistent hand preferences do not appear to differ in motor behavior as revealed by performance on a fine motor task. Furthermore, it appears that the performance of those with inconsistent hand preference presents a significant challenge to current theoretical notions of the genesis of handedness.