Left-Right Orientation among Hausa Children

Abstract

Hausa (Nigerian) children were given two sets of left-right orientation tests: (1) identification of left and right hands on the child's own body and on the body of an investigator facing him, and (2) subtracting from a group composed of a large middle doll with two smaller dolls each side of it, first the middle and the smaller on the right, and then the middle and the smaller on the left. In both cases the child was asked to identify which doll was the left and which was the right. Reported results of the "hands" test give ages at which the left-right identification was attained, using the criterion of 75%, while results of the "dolls" test are reported in terms of the percentages correctly identifying left and right at different ages. The results and methods are compared with studies using a similar approach.