(FV). Motor skills in speech, language, literacy, and thinking development .

Introduction

This paper considers genetic and epigenetic effects upon the development of individual cerebral specialism, leading to variability in laterality, handedness, and motor skills competences as recorded in large scale developed nation, macrostudies. This variability may meet local familial / tribal environmental demands for a particular form of neurological specialism, which is appropriate to the sub-cultural work situation. But when learning an opaque phonological language,such as English, this laterality variability may result in limitations in the extraction and expression of meaning through speech, literacy failure, and difficulties in the use of verbally mediated thinking. These language communication limitations prevent the learner from benefitting from the skills and knowledge delivered through this language structure, and its related thinking system, in his / her national education system.

The relevance to literacy failure, of a different neurologicalspecialism leading to a sensory motor skills profile which is inappropriate to the structural demands of the cultural language to be learned.

In a detailed analysis of the cognitive profiles determiningthe sensory motor difficulties experienced by over 1000 literacy failing students when learning to speak and read the extremely opaque English phonological language, Chasty (2015) identified motor skills development as a particularly relevant problem area.

In this research, it was pointed out that this important finding may not be replicated in all psychological assessments, because there had been a recurring tendency derived from past psychological practice, not to test levels of motor skills development in literacy failing students. Linked to earlier definitions of dyslexia as a phonological difficulty, (see Vellutino et al 2004), phonological awarenesswas a much more frequently tested and documented sensory

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skill area, which led directly into phonologically based literacy teaching. In opaque phonological languages, this form of literacy teaching is helpful for many students, but does not meet the needs of all literacy failing students.

This paper does not question the importance of phonological awareness in literacy development. But failure to develop phonological awareness is not the sole, or indeed, major causeof world illiteracy. Motor skills development is advanced as an essential preliminary factor contributing to phonological awareness, in the establishment of the foundation “language sound heard - motor movement to say” linkage. Motor skills development also contributes to other, later developing forms of literacy failure, in linking motor skills to the sequential, organized extraction of meaning from text, and thecoherent expression of meaning through speech and writing.

Different laterality – handedness skills are not entirely negative.

In forwarding the literacy skills development, of these failing students, teachers must implement detailed laterality and motor skills testing which accurately indicates the extentof development of the student’s current motor skills competences, and any changes resulting from special teaching that has been implemented. This monitoring is a very important process, and attention must be given to the development and use of suitably refined motor skills tests. Aswill be seen later in this paper, most of the available motor skills tests do not fulfil this function adequately.

But the different, non- right dominant laterality and motor skills development of these literacy failing students recordedin this ‘handedness’ testing, should not be seen as being entirely negative. While these different sensory and laterality / handedness structures are inappropriate to learning language and literacy skills in English, they offer some sensory advantages in particular, sub-cultural work, games and warfare situations, discussed in detail, later in this paper.

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For these right hemisphere dominant literacy failing students,the elimination of right hemisphere neurological dominance should not be advanced as the primary teaching aim. The intention must be to offer greater flexibility through widenedsensory motor alternatives, implemented and controlled metacognitively by the learner. This can be achieved by using multi-sensory teaching directed to the development of both sensory motor and literacy skills. These issues are discussed later in this paper, and in greater detail in Chasty (2015).

Motor skills in everyday life.

In everyday life, motor skills are important because they are necessary for facilitating and controlling the individual’s movement in his environment, and managing a range of essential manipulative tasks. These may range widely, across activities such as walking down a busy thoroughfare while texting, without bumping into passers- by; buttoning trousers, shirts or blouses, tying strings or laces when dressing; picking up spaghetti on a fork when eating, or munching a bacon sandwich in a politically acceptable way; drawing, painting, illustrating, writing, or typing; aiming asling, bow , rifle, or rocket; controlling a fast moving spinning frame in a mill, accurately directing an oxy-acetylene torch when welding; or even tightening the tiny screw in the frame of our spectacles so that the arm does not drop off.

Because of the apparent simplicity and familiarity of these every-day actions, we tend to underestimate the importance ofthe systems developed for their successful management. We failto appreciate how the working memory procedures we establish to manage our very simple, early developing motor skills, arean essential foundation for our later developing thinking capabilities. These representational competences play a major role in literacy learning, and determine the sensory directions taken in our later learning and thinking in school.

Basic definitions of motor control

Parents and teachers often find the term “motor” to be a confusing part of the jargon of psychology. What does it

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actually mean? If the word is checked in a dictionary, the primary meanings listed, are usually and misleadingly relatedto machines which convert energy into motion, or about riding in a car. It is only well down the list of possible alternative meanings that the psychological usage ‘pertaining to or involving controlled muscular movement’ is found. In psychology, the term is generally used as an adjective to describe structures or functions connected with the activity of muscles.

Motor control is the general ability of an individual to direct muscle function and voluntary movements. The system takes its name from the part of the brain known as the motor cortex which controls these processes, and sends the neural signals to initiate movement. Gross motor skills are the abilities required to control the large muscles of the body, and include posture and whole body movement. Fine motor skillsare the abilities required to control, the small movements of the fingers, hands, wrists, toes, and feet, usually in association with vision. Just as important, is the control ofthe jaw, mouth, lips and tongue, usually in association with sound discrimination and hearing.

These early motor memory and control skills, when linked cross-modally, to sound, are the essential foundation to speech, and when a little later, the visual input systems are added to this cross modal transfer mechanism, this facilitates the further development of literacy from existingspeech competences.(See also the glossary for comment upon the development of AKS and VAKS linkages.) It is therefore evident that if the early motor memory systems are impaired or seriously retarded, the speech and literacy skills developments which rely upon this foundation, will also be limited. We shall return to this finding, later in this paper.

Effects of different neurological organization upon motor skills.

Motor skills have an important role in the learner’s cognitive development, but what are the particular links between motor skills development and literacy? John Stein (2000), when considering the causality of reading difficulty /

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dyslexia , provides a very graphic description of the dysfunctional motor skills many of these students experience.

“Their (reading failing students’) legendary clumsiness, impaired coordination and balance, can be attributed to abnormal cerebellar function, for which there is now a great deal of evidence. Their reduced sequencing and timing ability may be attributed partly to impaired cerebellar function and partly, perhaps, to reduced magnocellular input to the left hemisphere which normally receives more than the right. This, in turn, would lead to impaired hemispheric specialization that would explain their relative failure to establish fixed hemispheric dominance, their tendency to problems with tellingleft from right, their mixed handedness, unfixed eye dominance, and many other cognitive symptoms. In short, immunologically mediated mild magnocellular deficiency could explain all the wide variety of problems that dyslexics face.”

Ramus, Pidgeon and Frith (2003) investigated the cerebellar theory of dyslexia, by examining the phonological and cerebellar functions across phonological skills, postural stability, bead threading, finger to thumb tapping, and time estimating, in a group of 8 – 12 year old dyslexic children and their matched controls. They report that dyslexic children were significantly poorer at all the tasks except time estimation. Because of the skill in time estimation shown by these dyslexic students , the authors discounted thecerebellar origin of the observed motor difficulties, which they had noted in some 50% of the dyslexic students they tested .

It is these links between motor skills deficiencies, laterality skills, cerebral specialism, phonological awareness, speech difficulties, reading failure, and later cognitive competences, which will be considered in detail in this chapter.

The names given to left and right hands have important social and cultural implications.

In this area of study which is causally linked to language andliteracy failure, and the use of different non-verbal thinking

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processes, we have notable historical and social biases to overcome. Currently, the superiority of the right hand is widely acknowledged throughout the world. The generally preferred right hand is not just the strong, skilled hand. In common usage it is also regarded, as the perpetrator of noble and good actions. In English, right is not just a hand or a direction, it also refers to being ‘good’ and ‘correct’. A similar conjunction of meaning is observed in Spanish, German,French, Italian and Slavic.

In contrast, in English, the word left is derived from the OldEnglish word “lyft” meaning idle, weak, or useless. Left handedness is referred to as ‘sinistrality’, with the alternative meaning of an evil omen. In Italian, the word for left handedness, “mancino” is derived from a root which implies, crooked, maimed or deceitful. Again, a similar conjunction of meaning is found in many other languages, with the term used to designate the left hand also meaning, gauche,clumsy, vulgar, tasteless, uncultured, oblique, twisted, weak or bad. Unfortunately, these negative reactions to the use of the left hand were much too frequently transferred to the lefthanded person.

The discrimination implicit in such terminology has resulted in many centuries of rejection for left handers, leading to many of them experiencing an unnecessarily negative educational history. An example of this is the practice prevalent in the earlier half of the twentieth century, when a substantial number of infant teachers forced children who came to school preferring to draw and write with their left hand, to use their right hands for these activities. This action failed to resolve the laterality confusions experiencedby these children. It did not facilitate the amelioration of the language , learning and literacy problems these students later experienced, and probably diminished any creative / visuo-spatial abilities they possessed.

This leads to important questions about handedness. When compared with right handers in their society, do left handed students show variations in the scale of their left handed development? Is one left hander neurologically different or more extremely right hemisphere dominant / left handed than

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other left handers? How does this graduation in neurological specialism affect learners? When compared with main-stream right handers, does the left handed person use spoken languagedifferently, read, write and spell differently, think differently, learn differently, and behave differently? These are issues upon which this paper seeks to shed further light.

Left handedness resulting to literacy failure is not always negative in the working environment. The case history of a successful left hander.

In a large scale study of some 47,000 people in the USA and UK, Professor Joshua Goodman of Harvard University reports that in this very large group, left handers earned some 12% less than right handers. This suggests that they are significantly less successful in working life. But when compared with right handers across the full verbal-visual range of information processing and problem solving required in adult life, it is certainly not all that negative for lefthanders.

As a group, left handers often show unusually highly developed visuo-spatial skills, and good ability to imagine purposeful spatial lay-outs. There are a range of visually loaded skills they can do very well. In adult life, when compared with right handers, they more frequently become skillful and successful architects , designers, mathematicians, engineers, computer experts, code breakers, and artists. In these employment areas, the different neurological organization associated with left handedness seems to confer skills benefits.

An example of this kind of remarkable visuo - spatial skills development is seen in the career progression of a left handeddyslexic man I once worked with. Because of the serious language and literacy limitations he experienced in association with his left handedness, he was very unsuccessfulin school, leaving without formal academic qualifications. Butthis was certainly not the end of his individual development.

He was an extreme left hander, had excellent gross motor skills, and a very cultured and well controlled left foot. He

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had very good visuo- motor skills, was a good athlete, was well coordinated, and had high ability in football, which he played professionally for a well- known club. In his play, hisexcellent right hemisphere skills were reflected in great ‘visual field awareness’, enabling him to spot the weaknesses in his opponents’ tactical positioning, and he was noted for being the master tactician, who slotted through the key defense- splitting pass from which goals were scored.

Unfortunately he broke his leg very badly and a very successful playing career was prematurely ended. He had not amassed the fortune which the present generation of footballers regard as their right, and had to earn a living. Lacking literacy skills and formal qualifications this was noteasy for him.

He had to start at the bottom, but was very determined, and took what was available in his local job-market. He went to work in a back – street factory making clothes. After studying the operation of the work systems used there, he went to the ‘boss’ and said, “if you change the machine layoutand production flow, by putting these machines in the following order…. you will increase production by 30% without additional cost”. The company tried it and found he was right.

A visiting buyer from a national high street clothing companynoted the new layout, the increased efficiency, and the more competitive pricing, and asked who thought it all up. When introduced to the dyslexic worker he invited him to visit his company’s other factories and comment upon production. His analyses of these production lines and suggestions for improvement proved to be accurate and the changes he advised were financially very beneficial. Very quickly, this man was ‘head-hunted’ and invited to join the big high street company in a senior position, to do his machine layout/ efficiency / economy ‘thing’ on a national basis. He was very effective and became a highly valued ‘senior management’ executive in this very famous company.

With his greatly increased responsibilities, he had to communicate with the Board of Directors and other employees throughout the company, and even a very efficient PA /

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secretary could not conceal his literacy and communication problems. At that management level his dyslexia again became aserious difficulty. But his company appreciated his other skills, and his high value to them, and sent him to me, to set up a programme to develop his language, literacy and communication skills…. Yes there may be difficulties, but there may also be rare, high level, very valuable concomitant visuo-spatial abilities inherent in the right hemisphere dominance leading to left handedness which results in literacy failure.

The early development of motor skills.

In the growing child, casual observation suggests that these related skills develop in the following order, with early motor skills leading to laterality from which handedness, leading to cerebral specialism is established. However, this is incorrect, because even careful observation of infant motorbehavior does not enable detection of the important congenitally determined neural linkages which are not open to direct observation, but are being established by the fetus inthe womb, and continued after birth by the infant . Brain specialism along two key dimensions, architectural layout, andneuronal connections, leading to laterality, then handedness, is developing in the fetus prior to birth.

Kouider et al (2013), have shown that the brain mechanisms underlying the threshold of conscious perception, i.e., understanding and managing motor, visual, auditory, taste andsmell sensory inputs, are already present in very early infancy, and undergo a steady acceleration during later development.

Brandler et al (2013) noted that the PCSK6 gene was involved in establishing left – right asymmetry in developing embryos. Brandler commented, “The genes are involved in the biological process through which an early embryo develops from being a ball of cells, and becomes a growing organism with an established left and right side.” This leads to the establishment of left-right organizational differences in the growing infant’s brain. These organizational variations resultin differences in sensory processing skills competences,

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particularly motor skills development. This impacts upon the acquisition and control of speech, literacy and verbally mediated thinking skills, and influences the integrity and level of development of handedness which may be observed in the classroom.

Involuntary motor skills

Some of the earliest movements of young infants lack volition or conscious control. These have therefore been described as reflexive. In considering the child’s early development and control of motor skills, we must distinguish between involuntary muscle actions such as shivering, blinking or sneezing, over which the child has no immediate direct control, and those voluntary muscle actions which he/ she chooses to carry out for a specific purpose. Whilst the mode of control over involuntary and voluntary actions is different, these are not always entirely separate systems, since they involve shared effector organs and pathways, and may interact with each other.

The involuntary or autonomic motor system provides the body with many of its essential processes of breathing, blood circulation and pressure, digestion, and electrolyte balance. As its name suggests, the autonomic motor system operates effectively throughout the learner’s life, without having to be thought about or requiring direct control. That is a cognitively very efficient process. It doesnot need or use scarce management space in working memory executive. The autonomic motor system is regulated by the hypothalamus, which has been described as the brain’s reward centre. This orchestrates the endocrine system, and acts as anintermediary between it and the nervous system. The thymus, located in the lower neck releases thymic hormones, which helpto develop T lymphocytes and regulates the body’s immune system.

These complex involuntary systems should not be dismissed as being irrelevant to the motor skills development of the language - literacy failing child. It has been suggested by some researchers (see Geschwind, Galaburda, and Behan, discussed later) that these systems, and particularly, the

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operation of the thymus, may be affected by the alternative neurological development which leads to left handedness, laterality uncertainties, and at a later stage, language / literacy difficulties. These differences in the thymus, result in left handers having a different body immune system,with different life determining effects, which will be discussed more fully, later in this paper.

The voluntary motor system.

The thalamus plays a key role in controlling motor systems of the brain responsible for voluntary bodily movement and coordination. It receives incoming sensory motor signals, andredirects these to the relevant cortical area with the neuronal development for conscious management and control of this information. Without the activities of the thalamus all sensory motor skills will be impaired, and lack operational control.

Toulmin et al (2015), investigated the connections between thethalamus and the cortex using MRI scans of the brains of 66 infants. Forty seven of these infants were born before 33 weeks, and 19 were born at full term. The 19 full term infantsshowed a thalamus – cortex connection structure similar to that found in normal adults. But infants born prematurely had significantly reduced connectivity between the thalamus and the brain regions supporting motor control and higher cognitive functioning in the cortex. This limited these premature learners’ reception and use of sensory motor information across a range of higher learning tasks, includinglanguage.

Toulmin explained that these findings offered some explanationof why premature birth was associated with a greater risk of neuro-developmental problems, such as autism, attention deficit disorders, and language learning difficulties. She predicted that the next step for this research team was to examine how these findings related to concentration, learning,and social difficulties.

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The importance of early motor memory competence as a foundation for later representational and working memory skills underlying subsequent learning in school.

Successful early motor learning is not solely about developing basic physical skills, important though these may be. In nursery education and later in school, motor control is essential not just because it enables the management of two eyes to look, take in ideas, and later read, and a preferred hand which when effectively controlled, draws or writes to express ideas; but because it provides a vital and absolutely necessary representational system for ideas in which initially, there is some element of movement. To facilitate effective operation of the later developing higher levels of cognitive processing, the early developing, lowest levels starting with motor activity, must sort, store, retrieve, move and manage information accurately and efficiently. The child must establish effective representational and recall procedures to provide a secure foundation for later, more widely represented sensory processing through working memory, leading to competent learning.

Early motor learning requires continuing repetition of the muscular movement pattern to be learned. This cannot take place without the motor memory facility to focus upon, hold, repeat and manage the desired action sequence. From the outset, motor memory processes are essential. If at this earliest stage in the infant’s cognitive development, these motor memory processes are not already available, then the motor skill learning process will fail.

While Flanagan et al (2001) report that motor memory is genetically pre-wired, this genetic trait, like other aspects of brain hemispheric specialism, may be disrupted by epigenetic action upon familial genetic processes, which willbe discussed more fully later in this paper. Brandler’s important PCSK6 gene may be epigenetically switched off, with very significant effects for later development of neurologicalspecialism, handedness, and later language and literacy learning. Without established early motor memory, later

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developing motor skills and other later developing working memory skills will be disrupted.

The successful act of learning a simple motor skill must depend upon the establishment and development of the storage,retrieval and management systems in embryonic working memory to operate and re-operate the constituent elements of the skill sequence to be learned. Some infant learners will have the necessary motor memory competences required to facilitatemotor learning, but others will not. Limitations apparent in the motor and memory systems seem to run concurrently. It follows that failure to develop the motor skill will concomitantly result in failure to develop the storage and management systems needed for that learning. Later in the child’s development, in the application of motor aspects of working memory to higher cognitive learning, those missing memory systems will result in further ongoing cognitive deficiencies .

The importance of the link between establishing neurological control over early motor skills development, and later cognitive development, appears increasingly frequently in theliterature. Adolph (2005) is quite clear that in learning to move, the infant is also learning to learn. Grissmer et al (2010) stress the importance of motor learning for cognition.They point out that (i) there is a clear connection in neural circuitry between the areas controlling fine motor skills and the areas controlling cognition; (ii) these areas are developing simultaneously with exceptional speed during early infant brain development; (iii) the level of early motor skills development is a proven indicator of later competencesin curriculum activities such as mathematics and reading.

Propper et al (2013) have also shown a surprising link between the operation of motor and memory skills. The “Hemispheric Encoding and Retrieval Asymmetry” (HERA) model proposes that the left pre-frontal regions are associated withencoding, and right pre-frontal regions are associated with the retrieval of episodic memories. It is thought that the motor movement of clenching the right fist activates the left pre-frontal cortex and stimulates memory encoding, while clenching the left fist activates the right pre-frontal

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region, and stimulates retrieval of the information from memory.

Propper et al required their experimental subjects to squeezea rubber ball as hard as possible, with their right hand, before trying to memorise a list of 72 words. They were then required to squeeze the ball with their left hand before recall of the word list was tested. When compared with the other hand possibilities, right hand squeezing before memorisation, and left hand squeezing before recall showed significantly better results. Propper et al concluded that this experiment supported the HERA model and simple motor movements, could stimulate cognition and improve memory performance.

Evidence is therefore available to support the hypothesis thatthe child’s motor problems are linked to and associated with memory difficulties that lead to later storage and management difficulties in working memory. In the current development of the literature it is difficult to disentangle which is cause and which is effect. Indeed these may be inter-twined with initial motor memory weakness contributing to early motor difficulties which further contribute to later memory weaknessresulting in more complex motor skills, and working memory problems in an ongoing way.

The finding of Alloway et al (2005) that “limitations in complex memory span were associated with writing skills deficiencies” supports this hypothesis. Ongoing research is now identifying the in-school effects of the memory – motor – learning difficulties which are our focus in this chapter.

Linking the motor movement skills required for sound production and their memory facility to the speech sounds the infant hears, extends the embryonic memory storage systemto organize, retain, manipulate and manage these sounds. This cross – modal linkage has proved to be very difficult for language disadvantaged children and those who later experience phonological dyslexia. This skill development area requires much greater developmental assistance from parents and teachers, and should form part of an essential early cognitive skills development programme.

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Language learning does not begin in phonological awareness. The ‘ environmental speech sound heard – motor moving to say’ linkage provides the foundation to phonological awareness, necessary for speech. It is apparent that the competence in phonological awareness which over the past half century, has been considered to be so important in literacy development (see Vellutino et al 2004), depends upon earlier establishmentof basic motor memory and motor skills competences. High levels of skill in the linking and transfer of information from the motor dimension to the auditory dimension and back, are required before phonological awareness reaches the level of automatic control required for later literacy success.

This argument is supported by Ramus, Pidgeon and Frith’s recorded early motor difficulties in association with later phonological and reading difficulties in their (2003) study referred to above.

Genetic determination of the particular neurological structurerequired by indigenous language learners for speaking and understanding their cultural language.

Are these essential “language speech sound heard – motor movement to say” linkages genetically determined? Over some fifty years, there was a broad general acceptance across the literature that infants were genetically programmed to interact with all speech sounds across all languages. They could “hear” the speech sounds of any language, replicate them, and build that language’s linguistic structure to accessits meaning. They had a genetically determined “universal grammar”, and could learn any world language. This was described by Noam Chomsky(1965) in his seminal work, “Aspectsof the theory of Syntax”.

The very recent research of Brennan et al (2013), and Ge et al(2015) has called this broadly based, genetic determination for all world languages into question, and has focused attention upon the cultural determination of the genetically linked, language specific, neurologically based skills required for learning individual cultural languages .

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Ge et al showed that when compared with indigenous English language learners, indigenous Chinese language learners have aunique auditory processing system for the equally unique, semantically important, tonal qualities of the Chinese language. Chinese learners showed a different but tonally appropriate neurological development of the right anterior temporal lobe for processing these important tonal variations,to gain meaning from spoken sounds. English learners of Chinese, whose home language did not require the use of this auditory sensory- semantic procedure to portray aspects of meaning linked to speech tone, did not. There were therefore,semantically important, genetically determined neurological differences between indigenous Chinese language learners, and indigenous English language learners, which matched the particular demands of their home language.

Ge et al recorded that English language users showed no activation of the right anterior temporal lobe in speech, but did use different areas of the left hemisphere, which were notactivated or used by Chinese students. These left hemisphere regions were essential in speech processing by English learners, to meet the particular idiosyncratic English alphabetic language requirement to break down words into theirbasic phonological elements.

The different genetically determined neurological differences which had been identified between indigenous Chinese language learners and indigenous English language learners, seemed to be directly linked to linguistic structural- semantic differences between these two languages.

Because English born learners of the Chinese language did notcarry the indigenous genetic development of the right temporallobe to process these tonal qualities, they found this aspect of meaning determination in Chinese to be particularly difficult. These English born Chinese language learners had toconstruct and develop this necessary neurological processing circuitry for the semantic implications of the tonal qualitiesof the Chinese language for themselves. When compared with indigenous Chinese language learners, this was a slow and difficult process which limited their speed of acquisition of

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the Chinese language, and their on-going ability to determine key aspects of implicit meaning in this language.

This is supported by the earlier research of Brennan et al (2013), who reported that the alphabetic requirements of the English language needed development of the left superior temporal gyrus, and left inferior frontal and inferior parietal cortices when processing spoken words. But this neurological development was absent in Chinese language learners, whose language semantic structure did not need theseparticular neurological developments.

In the research discussed above, these links between the cultural language structure and the genetically developed neurology of the indigenous learner have been observed in the speech process. It is my view that these lead to differences in the identification and management of speech sounds, the reproduction of these through the motor movement system, and the extraction and manipulation of the meaning conveyed by these sounds. This must also interfere with the reading process, which is based upon the cultural language AKS speech structure, to which the visual form must be added. (See the glossary for discussion of the AKS and VAKS systems; also Hulme and Snowling 2013, on the clear developmental relationship between speech and reading).

However, Dehaene et al (2015), who surveyed the current neurological literature, on behavioural and cerebral changes induced by reading acquisition, assert: “The bulk of the evidence suggests that at the coarse scale provided by functional MRI, reading relies on similar circuitry in all cultures.” Dehaene et al, regarded the differences observed in reading, between cultural language structure and the indigenous learner’s related neurological development to be only, “fine scale” .

In reaching this conclusion, Dehaene et al (2015) surveyed thefield very widely, reporting upon some 178 studies. But acrossthis wide range of studies, only a limited number of languageswere used. The greater majority of these studies reported on testing in English or Chinese, with only a few studies in French being visited. The literature surveyed lacked cross

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cultural surveys. The only cross cultural comparison studiesreferred to are Bolger et al (2005) and Seymour et al (2003).The languages surveyed may be summarized as broadly, alphabetic (phonological) and logographic.

Dehaene et al advance the view that reading in all languages requires the development of what are seen as “universal” linksbetween the “visual word form area, the phonological system, and the motor system”. This gives the learner the systems necessary to view the visual form in print, attach its sound, and say it. But reading is much more than recognizing printed symbols and saying the sounds they represent. While Dehaene etal at page 239, under the heading, “Speech-processing Changes”, sets out that “the main purpose of reading is to recover spoken language from vision”, no detailed consideration is given to the most important aspect of the reading skill, which is the extraction and manipulation of theimplicit meaning of the printed symbols.

When alphabetic - phonological languages are considered, the inherent complexity of those visual – auditory – motor links varies very greatly across the world range of transparent to opaque phonological languages. At the extreme opaque end of the phonological complexity dimension, this results in very different and more complex processing routes being necessary between the visual word form and the phonological system to give access to the spoken sounds of the viewed word(s). (see Ziegler and Goswami’s, 2005 exposition of grain size theory inlanguages). Dehaene et al’s description of such wide ranging differences in complexity of visual – auditory links in phonological languages as “universal” may therefore be questioned by some teachers and researchers.

In their section entitled “Box 2, Literacy in different cultures”, Dehaene et al accept that “when adapting to a specific script this universal biological circuit converges onto slightly different strategies.” But when the reading learner does not have the appropriate neurological structures required to “converge on to these strategies”, as described byGe et al, (2015), this results in his / her failure to gain the implicit meaning. This must be considered to be a failure in literacy acquisition. Consequently, teachers may also

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question Dehaene et al’s estimation of the significance of what are referred to as “ slight differences in strategy”.

While the accuracy and authority of Dehaene et al’s survey ofthe literature is not questioned, for the reasons given above, the conclusion reached on this survey, of universality across all cultures, of the neurological processes in reading,may be treated with some reserve.

Arising from this preceding discussion of relevant research, important principles underlying links between a “cultural language structure and its indigenous learner’s neurological structure” are evident .

The Ge et al and Brennan et al studies suggest that there is adevelopmental relationship between the spoken cultural language structural form, and the neurological development of the indigenous learner to process these structural language demands. The particular idiosyncratic structure of the home language used by the learner, leads to the development of the appropriate neurological organization necessary to process, extract and manipulate the implicit meaning of that language.The structure of the language to be learned, determines the neurological structure the indigenous learner brings to successful spoken language learning. Later, that neurologically based AKS structure is brought by the learner, to reading in that culture. Over time, that neurological organization appears to be incorporated into the cultural genome, and passes to successive generations of learners of that language, to facilitate and ease their acquisition of thecultural language, regardless of its visual – verbal format, and structural simplicities or complexities.

This calls into question Noam Chomsky’s linguistic theory of the “universal grammar”, that every child is born with the mental capacity to learn any language.

The underlying principles determining the coherence of a cultural language’s semantic structure and its indigenous students’ neurological specialism for learning that structure,are important in understanding the cultural variability evident in laterality – handedness.

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Down the history of world-wide language development, there isan identifiable and observable evolutionary developmental relationship between the skills necessary for successful life in a culture; the particular neurological organization leading to the development of the sensory motor skills broughtby indigenous students to successful language learning in thatculture; and the particular processing demands placed upon its learners / speakers by the sensory semantic structure ofthe cultural language.

Based upon these observations, the Cultural language – Indigenous Learners’ Sensory Motor integrity Hypothesis must be advanced for further consideration, testing, and application across world language and learning circumstances.

There appears to be an evolutionary accord leading to a continuing sensory motor skills match between (i); the basic neurological organization which determines the comparative strengths of the motor, visual and phonological / verbal sensory skills required for successful life in that culture / sub-culture. (ii) The genetically determined neurologically based sensory motor skills shown by the greater majority of that indigenous populace, which are directly available for successful language learning in the derivation, expression and manipulation of meaning from the language used in that culture. And (iii); The particular sensory motor processing demands of that cultural language.

This hypothesis, which links the structural semantic skills required in the cultural language, with the learner’s neurological specialism for language processing, is central tounderstanding the variations apparent in the cerebral specialism leading to laterality / handedness, as it is observed in relation to language learning, and industrial skills required in particular cultures, or sub-cultures, as discussed in this paper.

The widely promulgated, G20 economically developed, literate nation type, sensory motor distribution of 85% right handed, over-lays and conceals very important sub-cultural, tribal or familial sensory motor and language differences.

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One prestigious form of laterality / handedness is appropriateto the particular language used, in the establishment derived socio-economic conditions found in that culture, e.g., 85% of the population are left hemisphere dominant and right handed in normal , literate, educated, G20 type, developed, ‘western’economies. (see Brandler and Parachhini 2014).

But a different form of brain hemisphere specialism, leading to a different right hemisphere sensory motor skills structure, leading to a different pattern of laterality / handedness and sensory motor skills, supporting a less effective linguistic – semantic form of the national language,may be appropriate in a local, smaller, very differently formulated, socio-economic grouping. Operating within the large scale G 20 type, literate, educated, establishment based social order, this sub-culture is observed to use a verycontrasting semantic structural form of the wider cultural language, leading to qualitatively different learning / thinking competences, resulting in much less favourable outcomes in the ‘establishment’ formulated education system. But this inappropriate brain hemisphere specialism confers, orhas conferred advantages in stressful industrial conditions inthis disadvantaged lower working class environment.

This alternative, right hemisphere dominant laterality - sensory skills structure, linked to a very much less semantically expressive speech / language form, and significantly impaired literacy skills, may operate in the same geographic area as the ‘prestige, establishment’ structure described above. But it will be part of a generally unrecognized, (some would argue deliberately unrecognized) under-class sub-culture, with its own language form, and sensory skills demands, linked to, and relevant in its very different life-style and work situation .

This sub-culture places very significantly different educational demands upon the establishment formulated and directed education system, which, up to the present in the UK,and other major G20 countries, have not been met. In the UK, a clear example of this negative educational condition may be found in the lack of a suitable special provision for

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indigenous white, lower working class, deprived and disadvantaged students, who significantly underachieve in the application of speech and literacy skills to the manipulation of meaning. These students have been recorded by the DfE as the lowest achieving group in their published GCSE statistics.They must be seen as failing significantly in the state maintained education process, but have not received the special needs help they required. (See Baroness Mary Warnock, 2010.)

Within a national language setting, different language semantic structures are related to different sensory motor thinking structures, resulting in very different levels of educational success found in very contrasting local environments. Bernstein (1971), in his socio-linguistic theory of language codes, gave a very relevant description of the semantic and cognitive effects of such contrasting genetically determined sensory skills patterns, observed in very different social groups, within the wider English language culture.

When compared with middle class age peers, at the end of the education process, Bernstein recorded very much less effectivespeech skills in lower working class students. He called thesedifferent speech forms “restricted and elaborated codes”. Bernstein linked the use of these speech forms to qualitatively very different levels of extraction and expression of meaning through spoken language, which resultedin the very contrasting levels of verbally mediated thinking he recorded in these two groups . These speech and thinking contrasts had resulted in very different levels of educationalsuccess for these students. Based on this research, Bernstein advanced the hypothesis that the lower working class students were genetically deficient in a factor which enabled the development and use of verbally mediated thinking.

Description of “restricted” and “elaborated” codes used in a test situation.

For readers of this paper who are not familiar with Bernstein’s work, and do not appreciate the linguistic and

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semantic differences between his restricted and elaborated speech codes, the following examples are provided. These speech samples are taken from testing using the ‘Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children’ to determine the comparative verbal / visual problem solving capabilities of children from very contrasting social backgrounds, within a national Englishspeaking, ( UK ) context.

In the Performance section (visual problem solving) of the WISC test, the child must identify omissions in pictures. (See Figure 1, below) It should be noted that this test does not require a verbal response, and may be correctly solved by directed looking, pointing and touching. The choice of visual,verbal, or motor, modality for response is made by the student. But the verbal responses given by children are an effective measure of their ability to formulate ideas acquiredin the visual modality, into words in the verbal modality, using their existing phonological – linguistic – semantic speech structures.

In responding to the stimulus in Figure 1, below, the learner from the lower working class environment pointed to the missing knob and said:- “Its yon thang there yed howl onti ifye wantid tee open it.” If this is translated from his East Belfast vernacular, (which is not relevant to this discussion)into Standard English, he said, “Its that thing there you would hold on to if you wanted to open it”. This language sample is typical of his language usage, to represent ideas and convey meaning throughout the test. Not unexpectedly, on the WISC test, this child recorded low verbal problem solving scores , with particular weakness evident in ‘vocabulary’ and ‘similarities’ subtests. But he had high visual problem solving abilities.

His spoken response to the “What is Missing” test does not convey meaning effectively. It is of unsuitably irregular andobscure syntactic construction, shows limited vocabulary skills, does not name the missing object, uses no nouns, and is directed towards the implicit practical movement actions ofholding and opening. His speech form does not convey meaning effectively. It is directed towards the very practical actionsof “doing”, and he was a very effective “doer”. This is a good

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example of Bernstein’s “Restricted Code”, and this student demonstrates similar low verbal but high visual problem solving contrasts to those recorded by Bernstein in his testing of students from similar lower working class backgrounds, with similar speech semantic limitations.

How useful would this form of language usage be in facilitating this student’s interaction with his school curriculum, and enabling him to develop appropriately higher level skills in his verbal thinking? His sensory motor skills development particularly in the auditory – phonological dimension, did not match the skills required in educational formal English language usage. Consequently, he failed to speak, read, write, spell , and think effectively in the formof English used to express and manipulate curriculum ideas in school.

Figure 1. The “What is missing?” picture.

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But he should not be dismissed as being of generally lower ability. He could think very effectively in visual and practical terms. He also communicated and thought very effectively in his family environmental circumstances, using the communication and representational systems appropriate to that sub-culture. He could carry out other, work related skills required in that environment, very competently, and much more effectively than the middle class students with whomhe was being compared. His difficulties were cultural, environmental, situational, and related to the sensory – motorsemantic structural language form in which information was presented to him for processing, learning and responding.

In contrast, a middle class student, when shown the picture in Figure 1 above, immediately responded:- “The right hand knob of the second drawer is missing.” He used a succinct ,efficient, grammatically well constructed sentence, using nouns and verbs accurately to identify the missing item. This sample was typical of the quality of his speech throughout thetest procedure. and in Bernstein’s terms, he was an “elaborated code” user.

In the WISC test his cognitive profile showed superior verbal thinking ability, but his visual thinking was only of average ability. His sensory motor skills profile matched the processing requirements of his English language “code”, and hespoke read, and thought very effectively in English, and was very successful in the education system, provided through his preferred semantic structural language form, in his public school.

Both these students show sensory motor competences directly related to their success / failure in the extraction , manipulation and expression of ideas in English, which supportthe “Cultural language – student sensory motor skills integrity” hypothesis described in page 9, above.

These sensory motor skills differences which so significantly affected students’ language usage were genetically determined.

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Following up on this work, Chasty (1973) showed that on the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, 3-4 yearold, pre-school, lower working class infants showed limited speech and vocabulary skills, weak verbal reasoning capability, but had very much more effective visual thinking capability. In contrast, on the WPPSI Test, 3-4 year old middle class children showed very well developed vocabulary and speech skills, which supported a superior verbal reasoningcapability, but on the performance scale their visual problem solving was less effective.

These speech and cognitive skills differences were similar to those recorded by Bernstein, but were apparent before the children entered school, and could not be regarded as an educational effect. It was much more likely that these significant cognitive differences were attributable to geneticfactors present at birth, and affecting the neurological specialism which determined the sensory motor skills patterns shown by these infants in their approach to language and literacy learning.

Using the Dichotic Listening Test, (see the glossary for a description of this process), Chasty (1973) showed that at age 3 years +, these lower working class children showed no brain hemispheric specialism, or some degree of right hemisphere specialism.

It should be noted that on this test, these lower working class children showed a range of levels of right hemisphere specialism, linked to a range in the integrity of their left handed usage. Indeed, regardless of their indicated right hemisphere specialism, some of these infants held their pencil in the right hand when drawing or printing. Others wereinconsistent, and switched the pencil from hand to hand, depending upon the circumstances, and the activity they were carrying out. These observations supported the conclusion thatthere was a scale of left to right handedness, with neurological differences linked to practical language – literacy differences, which were evident between learners at different locations on the extreme left, to extreme right laterality dimension.

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On the dichotic listening test, the middle class children generally showed consistent, highly developed, left hemispherespecialism, and very much more consistent right hand usage. Itappeared that lower working class infants had a different genetically determined neurological organization, which led todifferent sensory motor skills development. This different cognitive profile limited their speech, literacy , writing , verbal reasoning, and curriculum attainments. This finding supported Bernstein’s observation that genetic “differences” in lower working class students impaired their use of verballymediated thinking.

Some support for these findings of neurological differences inchildren from deprived and disadvantaged backgrounds is recorded in Noble et al (2015). This research team reported that in a study of some 1099 “typically developing individuals in the age range 3-20 years”, associations were found between socio-economic factors, including parent education and family income, and measures of brain surface area, in a number of regions of the brain associated with skills important in academic success.

The wider links between the language used in a culture, and the thinking processes found in members of that culture are consistent with the views expressed in linguistic relativity theory. Typical of this work, Boroditsky (2010) considered that the languages we speak and use, do, in fact, shape the way we think. This relationship between the user language semantic structural complexity, the student’s sensory motor capabilities for the derivation and expression of meaning, andlater thinking preferences, is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 2, of Chasty (2015)

Follow up testing of these lower working class children confirmed that they showed significant difficulty in the acquisition of literacy skills, and later, experienced significant language related problems upon the school curriculum. It was apparent that the genetically determined, different neurological organization of the lower working class infants, led to a limitation in the use of a semantically efficient speech form, poor reading skills, inadequate written language skills, and limited verbally

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mediated thinking competences. But they had abilities in the right hemisphere sensory – motor skills which were of value inthe sub-culture found in the working environment of the mills,ship-yards, foundaries, and factories located, (or previously located) in their local lower working class home enclaves. That different local environment had stimulated the genetic determination of those different sensory motor competences, which led to the different linguistic – semantic language structures used in that environment, and subsequently, to thefailure of those students in the establishment determined education system.

Why was the environment in that working class enclave so different?

In the early 20th. century, children of school age, were forcedby familial poverty and hunger, to work long hours as doffers and spinners on alternate days in the linen mills of Belfast. (see Chasty 2015, for a fuller description of this process.) In that coercive , visual skills demanding environment, regardless of the sensory motor skills patterns inherent in the pre-existing family genome, they developed the right hemisphere neurological organisation appropriate to sustained monitoring of a large array of fast moving threads, and using two hands working together to join broken threads, and remove and replace full bobbins. This epigentically determined righthemisphere neurological structure, so appropriate for working in the mills, was inappropriate for left hemisphere controlled speech, and literacy learning required on their alternate days in school. Regardless of the quality of readingteaching provided for these child workers on the days they came to school, the vast majority showed significant intractable literacy difficulties.

Despite improving environmental conditions with time, and no longer being required to work long shifts in the mills, subsequent generations of these families who continued to livein that enclave, were observed to continue to show a lack of left hemisphere specialism leading to non - right hand dominance. This resulted in familial literacy failure / dyslexia, which, in my observation, has been recorded to

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continue through each generation in their families, in that enclave, for at least the next four generations.

Descendants from these families were part of the lower workingclass infant sample tested in the Chasty (1973) dichotic listening test research discussed above, and their ‘no hemisphere specialism’, or ‘right hemisphere specialism’ linked to their good visuo-spatial skills, and speech, literacy and verbal thinking limitations were confirmed. This appears to be an example of epigenetic determination of sensory motor skills patterns in families, leading to competences required or previously required in local employment, but concomitantly leading to ongoing literacy failure / dyslexia.

Non - right forms of laterality / handedness specialism, resulting from these epigenetically determined neurological differences, should not be seen as aberrant or wrong. But these forms are less appropriate and suitable for language / literacy/ verbally mediated learning as required in that wider, G20 type, linguistic, educational and cultural context . However, these different motor-laterality – handedness structures may be totally appropriate in the much narrower and more limited context of local familial / sub-cultural environmental, communication and employment circumstances.

For the thoughtful teacher, the aim must be to document and understand the effects of these genetically determined laterality / handedness systems on the student’s learning, literacy and work situations. Teacher’s purpose should not be to radically change the student’s available motor / lateralityskills to conform with the establishment norm. I have tried this with students from that enclave, (see Chasty 1973 and 2015) and found that it could be done, but the switch to usingleft hemisphere skills more effectively in language learning, resulted in a concomitant loss in valuable right hemisphere creative visual thinking in these students.

A more effective answer is to use multi-sensory methods directed to both learning skills development and the extensionof literacy skills, to extend, widen and diversify the

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student’s sensory motor skills options. Metacognitive trainingmust also be given in surveying and analyzing the learning task, so that the student learns to apply his wider competences more suitably and effectively to meet the demands of the particular task in hand. This leads to the greater flexibility required in sensory motor skills usage, to meet the very different challenges of national literacy learning, as well as particular local employment demands.

It is apparent that for these contrasting social groups, theirgenetically determined neurological organization facilitated (i) the skills required for successful life in the sub-culturethese students lived in, (ii) the structure and form of the language they used for communication, ( restricted code) which, as Bernstein showed was semantically different from theestablishment required ’Elaborated code’; (iii) the form of sensory representation they preferred, leading to the directions taken in their development of their wider thinking competences; and (iv) their relative success / failure in the ‘establishment directed’ education system. Consideration of these contrasting social groups appears to support the “Cultural language – students’ sensory motor skills integrity”hypothesis proposed on page 9, above.

See Chasty 2015, for a fuller description of the effects of epigenetically determined, “inappropriate” neurological organization, upon wider culturally determined, ‘establishmentconsistent’, language learning, and verbal thinking; and the teaching approaches appropriate to meeting these challenges.

The full neurological structure for reading is not geneticallypredetermined

Reading is a comparatively recent skill acquisition for homo sapiens. This only developed some 5 – 10,000 years ago, when spoken communication evolved to the level of being used for the permanent recording and storing of ideas. This was done ina variety of ways. Initially through pictures or hieroglyphics, and then later, through printed representationsof sounds and words. Regardless of the structure of the language used, the primary purpose of reading is to turn the

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recorded visual stimulus back into spoken language which givesaccess to meaning.

But mankind was not born with the complete neural circuitry essential to sustain reading. There are signs that this dedicated reading circuitry is in the process of evolving. Important bits of it have already been observed. The genetic determination of the full neural circuitry required for reading in each culture, may well be a human accomplishment created at some future time, through human evolutionary processes, in the inheritance of environmentally acquired neurological characteristics.(see the glossary for a fuller description and discussion of this process).

But for the present and foreseeable future, we, reading learners, must improvise the essential neural circuitry reading in our particular cultural language requires, by linking, weaving together, and re-using various initially unconnected brain circuits, whose primary purpose is controlling other human sensory abilities such as motor movement, sound recognition, and visual recognition.

Pinker (2002) has strongly asserted that mankind is genetically programmed for speech and language, but not for reading. Maryanne Wolf (2007) makes clear, “Human beings were never born to read. Reading is a human invention that reflectshow the brain re-arranges itself to learn something new”.

Because of this “ad hoc” brain systems ‘recycling’ requirement, reading is not a simple, smooth developing, pre-programmed, uni-dimensional skill. It is a complex multi- facetted sensory – motor construction process, which must be built by the learner in his particular environment, to facilitate the extraction, expression and use of meaning from his / her particular cultural language form. All too frequently, in languages using complex phonological – linguistic – semantic processes, this construction process remains unfinished.

The foundation for this sensory – motor construction process requires the deliberate development of a range of secondary competences and linkages between earlier developing, motor,

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auditory and visual storage and processing skills. As has beenshown by Ge et al, (2015), the systems connected by this neurological re-wiring and the order of connection for these secondary sensory repositories required for reading, are not universal, and are not consistent across the different languages found world – wide. This individual neurological structure created by the learner for extracting the sense fromprinted shapes in reading, depends upon the inherent structureof the home cultural language being learned.

This may be simpler, easier, and so established earlier, (see Seymour et al 2003) in the more transparent European languages. But the structure is different, for each language, and ranges in complexity across logographic, transparent and opaque phonological languages, and pictographic language formswhich are observed to be reappearing in evolving language structures required to convey meaning in the increasingly complex technologies required in the 21st .century.

In support of this conclusion, it must be pointed out that mybilingual South African student (see Chasty 2015), who read effectively in Zulu, but was illiterate in English, had inherited and implemented the effective neurological structurerequired to read competently at the usual age, in the phonologically transparent Zulu language. This simple Zulu semantic structure, which had to be developed for successful reading, matched the simple sensory motor demands of the very transparent Zulu language which uses some 140 phonemes to represent its phonological structure with great precision, consistency, and simplicity. This student showed some sensorymotor difficulties. But with his inherited “cultural language structural neurological competences”, he still managed this literacy learning process within the anticipated time scale inhis education system, and showed no signs of incipient dyslexia in this language.

Regardless of its conformity to the anticipated world universal visual word shape – phonological – motor control structures as described by Dehaene et al (2015), this developed neurological organization for Zulu, was of no help whatsoever, in the student’s later attempts to build the morecomplex and inconsistent neurological- linguistic - semantic

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structure required to learn to read in the phonologically extremely opaque English language . His visual – phonological – motor skills structure for Zulu, was not applicable to English language learning, and proved NOT to be universal.

The much more complex phonological – semantic structure required for English, uses only some 40+ phonemes inconsistently and unpredictably, to link the visual aspects of words, to their sounds, and the appropriate motor systems, leading to derived meaning. The Zulu student had not inherited the required English neurological structure from hisZulu speaking parents, nor could he build it for himself, because it was so complex. His neurological organization giving rise to his available sensory motor skills for languagelearning, while being suitable for learning Zulu, was inappropriate for learning to read in English. At this more complex level of linguistic – semantic – structural learning, his sensory motor skills inadequacies became much more relevant, and impeded his language learning process. Lacking the genetically determined neurological structure for English,the linguistically appropriate multi-sensory cognitive skills,and multi-sensory literacy and sensory motor skills training,he failed to learn to read in English, and was considered to be dyslexic in that language.

Early motor skills linkages are the essential foundation to speech and reading.

The clear relationship between early motor skills developmentand later speech and language development has been demonstrated by Bowen et al (1996). They reported that Griffiths IQ scores of 3 year old pre-school children who wereof extremely low birth weight, and therefore likely to show difficulties in the development of later cognitive competences, were an accurate predictor of their skill in verbal comprehension at age 5 years. This facilitated the early identification of those who would benefit from skills directed early intervention. It is apparent that early motor skills development is the necessary foundation to later phonological and speech development. The speech – language process begins with motor skills which are essential in the

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establishment of the auditory – kinesthetic - semantic linkages required in speech.

The very important primary cross-modal linkage to be established by the infant learner is between the sounds heard in his environment and the motor movement pattern required torepeat them. Yeatman et al (2011) have shown the importance ofthe development of the arcuate fasciculus in establishing the necessary links between the sounds the infant hears with the motor control centre in Broca’s area to facilitate saying those sounds.

Yeatman et al reported that the development of the arcuate fasciculus was subject to the usual left – right hemispheric specialism differences, with the right arcuate existing in allhealthy learners, but generally being much less well developedthan the left, and so, much less effective for supporting the vital “sound heard – motor movement to say” linkage.

They demonstrated experimentally that in a sample of 55 children, measurement of diffusivity and microstructure in theleft arcuate correlated positively with phonological awarenessskills, and arcuate volume lateralization correlated positively with phonological memory and later reading skills.

Yeatman et al’s conclusions are supported by Lopez – Baroso etal, (2013). They used functional MRI to detect the brain regions most active in children undertaking a word learning task. They reported that the left arcuate fasciculus, which they described as a collection of nerve fibres joining the auditory processing regions of the left temporal lobe with themotor face area, facilitated the connection of the sound pattern of the word, with the motor region responsible for thearticulation of that sound pattern. Further examination confirmed a strong relationship between the ability to learn new words and the structural development of the learner’s leftarcuate fasciculus. In learners who were able to learn new words most successfully, their left arcuate fasciculus was highly myelinated, i.e., the wiring of the connecting neuronswas stronger and better facilitated faster and more effective transmission of the stimulus signal. They reported that the

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on-going activities between these two brain regions were more effectively coordinated in successful word learners.

These research papers confirm the importance of the development of the left arcuate fasciculus in recognizing and saying sounds, the development of phonological awareness, wordlearning, and word recognition skills in reading.

Given the different neurological architectural and hemisphericorganizational skills observed across both lower working classlanguage disadvantaged and middle class dyslexic students, (see Chasty 1973), it is evident that these literacy failing students would not have developed the left arcuate motor – sound linkages , and dependent concomitant skills of phonological awareness, phonological memory, and word recognition in reading. This neurological difference would lead to early onset phonological dyslexia in students learningto speak and read in the complex and opaque phonological structure of the English language.

With multi-sensory learning, which directly links the motor system with the auditory system, and then with the visual system required later in reading, this representational matrix can be further extended to provide effective storageand processing with (i) greater capacity and (ii) more efficient multi-sensory management procedures for increasingly complex verbally based schemata.

Without this multi-sensory representational and management facility the learner’s later developing higher thinking competences will be seriously restricted. In fact, every learning process is maintained by these systems constructed from the learner’s early motor development. But most significantly, motor skills development is important because it is derived from, contributes to, and gives a clear indication of the integrity of the student’s overarching neurological organization and cerebral specialism.

There are three key phases in the early development of the infant’s control over motor skills.

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We must now change perspective, and consider in some detail, the development of the thinking processes of infants who bringto their cognitive and language development, the contrasting left and right hemisphere neurological organisations discussedin the previous section of this paper

Researchers examining the processes of infant motor learning have identified and described three successive stages in thedevelopment of a successful motor action:-

1) The cognitive phase When the learner faces a new motor task, he/she must work out what needs to be done. Much cognitive activity is required for the learner to devise an appropriate strategy leading to the completion of the task. Several strategies may be tried. Those that work effectively are tested, judged and the most effective is retained. Those that are ineffective or less efficient are discarded. Effective motor working memory skill is necessary throughout this process. This strategy appraisal and selection results ingreatly improved performance in a relatively short period of time. This is the start point for metacognitive training led by parent / carer / teacher.

Shadmehr and Holcombe (1997) found that when a motor skill was initially established there was a six hour period of important neural action during which the skill could be impaired or lost. Using functional brain imaging techniques they established that in this period, the learner’s central nervous system was establishing a neural pathway to control the performance of the task. This process required the engagement of new and different brain regions to control the activity. The neural links which formed the brain’s internal model (schema) of the activity were shifted from the pre-frontal regions of the cerebral cortex to the premotor, posterior parietal and cerebellar areas noted for their role in motor control. In this process the internal schema was changed, became less fragile, and more easily managed by the learner. Interruptionof this essential process of establishing control resulted inthe skill being completely lost to the learner.

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2) The associative phase When the learner has determined themost effective strategy for the task, memory skills are employed repetitively to replay the movement sequence (schema). This leads to much smaller and more subtle performance adjustments being implemented. The skill improvement is much more gradual and integral movements in theschema become much more consistent, and the delivery of the skill is smoother. This phase of skill development takes a much longer time.

3) The autonomic/ automatic phase Reaching this stage of skill development requires consistent linkage and recall of the elements, across all the relevant modalities and takes many months of practice. The successful skilled learner can then automatically operate, control and complete the task, without having to focus his/ her full attention in working memory upon it.

But it must be questioned whether, in the absence of intensive multi-sensory teaching directed to both working memory and language / literacy skills, seriously affected right hemisphere dominant students, ever reach this high level of control over motor- phonology - language – literacy skills. Their failure to establish phonological awareness should be viewed as a key early part of this substantial failure to develop automaticity and control of the important Auditory – Kinesthetic – Semantic cross-modal linkages for speech.

Key components of motor and memory development.

These phases of motor skills development discussed above provide the key components of early working memory development. De Quiros and Schrager (1979) stressed the importance of such developments and their required management procedures for the child’s higher learning. They pointed out that the body is continuously providing information to the brain's 'consciousness' about hunger, pain, comfort, sensationposition, movement, balance, vision, hearing, and many other life variables. With increasing maturity and the wider horizons provided by mobility and developing speech, the

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loading upon the infant’s developing processing and recalling skills can quickly become excessive, and over-powering.

Whilst the higher cortical levels can receive and act upon allthis information, the continued use of this high-level processing capability for the maintenance and control of all these relatively simple bodily activities is not an efficient use of the learner's cognitive resources. This limitation obstructs further cognitive development. When high level cognitive capacity is being used to control simple bodily activities, that capacity is not available for simpler learning to take place, nor is it available to process other more complex sensory events.

As described in the autonomic phase above, the crucial step for motor learning, and for all the child’s subsequent cognitive development, is the establishment of a more economical and effective schema control procedure. This must operate at a level of automaticity, and require less space in working memory and little or no attention in the executive.If this more effective and working memory economical procedure is not developed, the learner’s later developing cognitive processes in the verbal dimension will be retarded,and not managed effectively. Right hemisphere dominant lower working class students fail to make this crucial break throughto automaticity in verbally mediated schema control.

In these circumstances, schema breakdown in phonological awareness, reading, meaning extraction and manipulation, spelling and writing skill operation can be anticipated, and the child’s overall verbal cognitive competence will be significantly diminished. This results in seriously restrictedcurriculum performance in school. This is the underlying cognitive deficit leading to the different learning style which is characteristic of the literacy failing students discussed in the earlier section of this paper.

Operational Subsidiarity

Close observers of the procedures of European Union administrators in Brussels are familiar with the key management strategy of ‘subsidiarity’ as set out and defined

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in Article 5 of the Treaty. This required that less important decision making and policy implementation should be directed and managed in the localities, as close to the ‘citizen’ as possible. Local capacity and resources must be used, rather than top level management in Brussels. This leaves top level management in Brussels free to process and manage the most important and complex issues. Keeping the local management processes involved, makes very effective political sense, but is even more important in psychological terms.

A similar very important cognitive management procedure must be developed by young children, so that developing ‘higher cognitive processes’ are not swamped and limited by the minutiae of single modality representations of bodily function, movement, touch and feeling, motor control, sound inputs, phonology, and visual impressions.

Instead of overwhelming high level consciousness with the processing and management of simple lower level, single sensory dimensional representations of motor, auditory and visual sensory perceptions, these should be integrated into a multi-sensory unit linking all the relevant sensory dimensions. With good teaching and appropriate skill developing practice, this can be managed more efficiently and preferably automatically, without using executive function, ata lower, less space demanding level of cognitive functioning. This vital cognitive development is referred to in this paper, as operational subsidiarity

The importance of this strategy has been confirmed experimentally by Bassett et al, (2015). They showed that when learning an experimental skill, the participants who recorded a lower level of brain activity in areas such as the anterior cingulate cortex,( which is responsible for executivefunction), learned this skill, fastest. These subjects had learned the important strategy of excluding and switching offthis part of the higher brain, which was not necessary for concentrating upon the learning task in hand. This allowed them to focus their full, ‘lower level’ capacities upon the designated learning task, to achieve faster mastery of its processes.

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It is at this generally neglected point in the child’s development that parents, carers, nursery-infant teachers andpsychologists must direct their attention. They must use games, and direct teaching approaches to facilitate the establishment of multi-sensory links and controls between developing motor, visual and phonological/verbal skills which underpin the AKS integrity essential for skilled speech and the later developing VAKS systems required in literacy.(see the Glossary for further description and discussion of the importance of the development of multi-sensory representation in the AKS and VAKS language systems.) Without this development all the child’s later developing cognitive and verbal language / literacy skills will be inefficient and lacking in direction and control.

This skills management technique frees valuable, but generally limited capacity for higher conscious cognitive processing, to carry out simultaneously, other important learning tasks. For literacy failing students who, because of epigenetic processes upon neurological organisation, lack bodily awareness and motor skills derived from genetically determined left brain hemispheric specialism; cognitive development of automatic control over these schemata will be delayed and restricted, and this will have further limiting effects upon their later higher language and literacy learning.

Limitations in motor skills leading to later language difficulties have been recorded by Viholainen et al (2002), who compared 88, one to two year old infants at risk of familial dyslexia with a normal control group. At group level no differences were evident in motor skills development, but cluster analysis of the ‘at risk’ infants identified two groups, one with fast motor development, and the other, with slow motor development. There was a significant (P = .03 ) difference between these groups on the MacArthur Communicative Development Inventory and the ‘at risk’ childrenwho showed slow motor development, were noted to have a smaller vocabulary and produced shorter sentences. For these children retardations in the development of early motor skillsappeared to be a predisposing factor leading to later

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limitations in phonological awareness, speech, communicationand literacy skills.

The importance of motor skills in language learning has recently been demonstrated by Mangen and Velay (2010). They compared the progress made by two groups of students learning a new language. The first group used motor skills to write theletters by hand and read. The second group typed the letters on a keyboard and read. The skills of the two groups in the new language were tested each week. The students who wrote theletters by hand showed significantly better skill in the new language. It was concluded that the motor aspect of the VAKS linkages necessary to learn the language effectively was best developed through sensory-motor control linked with the visualelement required by handwriting, and this was a key part of the language learning process. Keyboard typing did not facilitate learning and language development to the same extent.

Laterality is one aspect of cerebral specialization.

Motor laterality is not simply a question of using a preferredhand , foot, eye or ear. it generally coincides with the sensory and symbolic predominance of the opposite cerebral hemisphere of the brain.Its major determinant is the functional differentiation of thebrain. Laterality implies specialism, which is based upon the adoption by the learner of particular strategies reflecting the extent to which the learner has organized movement and information managing skills into patterns or groups over whicheffective control has been established. Confused hand skills observed in laterality difficulties are an important factor in literacy failure because they reflect similar neurological organizational confusions in the learner’s brain.

As we have already established, iteracy failing children show a much less strongly organized and specialized left hemisphere for language and literacy learning, consequently wecan expect that they would show related confusions in handedness and motor skills development. Commenting upon this,Whitehouse and Bishop (2008) conclude, “atypical development of cerebral dominance is not implicated in all cases of poor

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language development, but may act as a biological marker of persistent specific language impairment.”

Handedness is the most clearly obvious aspect of laterality. It is generally defined as the hand that performs faster, smoother, better, and more precisely on socially prestigious manual tasks such as sewing with a needle and thread, fencing with a sword, shooting with a sling, bow and arrow, rifle, or rocket; hammering and sawing; carving, painting, drawing, or writing. But the importance of the ‘handedness’ skill has been over emphasized.

Simple observation of a hand which writes can be deceptive andmisleading. Determining which is the child’s dominant hand is a very controversial process, and in the literature, some of the early experimental results related to the incidence of handedness have been discounted later, because it was considered that the criteria for determining ‘handedness’ in these studies had not been sufficiently rigorous. Simple observation of the “moving fingers which write”, so often relied upon by teachers, is dismissed as giving misleading results.

Determination of handedness

Some practitioners now use detailed questionnaires. The Aston Index contained an effective questionnaire. The Edinburgh Oldfield Handedness Inventory is also a good example, containing some 15 questions which focus exclusively on handedness.

These are :-Which hand do you write with?Which hand do you draw with?Which hand do you throw with?Which hand do you use when cutting with scissors?Which hand do you use when brushing your teeth?Which hand do you use to hold a knife (without a fork)?Which hand do you use to hold a spoon?

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Which is your upper (controlling) hand when using a broom?Which hand do you use when striking a match?With which hand do you grasp the lid when opening a box?With which hand do you manipulate a computer mouse?In which hand do you hold a key to open a door?In which hand do you hold a hammer?In which hand do you hold a hair brush or comb?In which hand do you hold a cup while drinking?

Your answers to these questions enable you to be placed along the left right laterality dimension. At the right extreme you may be a 15 / 15 right hander. As an 8/15 right hander you maybe towards the middle of the L – R dimension. Or with a score off 1 / 15, you may be an extreme left hander. In considering your application of motor skills to literacy development, whatis important is not the hand you use to write with, but your position along that left- right laterality dimension.

In my experience, these questionnaires do not offer the practical information on laterality which is available from practical test systems requiring demonstration of effective fine motor control skills

Practical tests of handedness

Other practitioners have developed practical tests which compare left and right hand skill performances to make deductions about laterality – handedness. An example of this kind of testing is the bead threading used by Ramus, Pidgeon and Frith (2003).

I have found this test to be too heavily loaded on visual acuity. It also lacks discrimination between holding the bead in the right hand and threading with the left, and holding thebead in the left hand and threading with the right. I have observed some students putting the bead onto the thread, whileothers insert the thread into the bead. In these circumstances, it is difficult to determine which hand / hemisphere is actually controlling the activity,

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Marion Annett (1981) developed a peg moving task which she later used very frequently in her research into handedness. Inher test, the learner is timed while

FIGURE 1 THE CHASTY DOTTING SPEED TEST

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moving a set of pegs from holes on the left hand side of a board into matching holes on the right hand side of the board with the left hand. He/she is then timed moving the pegs back to the original holes with his right hand. Differences betweenright and left hand times are used to place the learner on theL –R laterality dimension. This peg moving task has also beenused by William Brandler and Silvia Paracchini in their research into the genetics of handedness.

This test is useful in determining broad handedness issues, but misses out on much key information on handedness, particularly relating to the application and control of “pencil in hand”, motor skills related to writing performance,which are very important to teachers seeking to remediate the motor, writing, expression of ideas, and spelling problems of dyslexic students in school.

The Chasty Dotting Speed Test.

A test which I devised in the 1970s and still use to place learners along the laterality dimension, is seen in Figure 1, below. This is a simple test which requires the learner, starting with his pencil point placed in circle 1, to place dots consecutively in circles 1 and 2 while the time for 20 consecutive dots in circle 2 is determined by the tester.(These circles should have a diameter of 2.4 cm and be 24 cms. Apart, i.e., they areplaced at each corner of a sheet of A4 paper) The activity is then repeated in circles 3 and 4 with the left hand. Right andleft hand time differences are again used to place the learneron the laterality dimension. This test has some advantages over other available ‘dominant hand’ test systems.

(1) It is cheap, and if the tester has run out of copies, it can be sketched quickly on a sheet of blank A4 paper.

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(2) It is quick and easy to administer, enabling the speed, accuracy and control of one hand to be compared with the other in under one minute.

(3) Being a “paper and pencil” test, it is closer to the very important writing process than other ‘handedness’ measurement procedures described above.Grip on the pencil is important in writing. This test allows the identification and later remediation of unusual and inefficient pencil grips such as left handedhooking, or awkward angular grips which require the fingers to be acutely bent, and lead to early cramping when writing continuously for more than a minute or two. Peg moving, or bead threading does not facilitate this important information gathering about the student’s writing ergonomics, stamina, and management of the writing implement.

(4) Comparison of the child’s test scores with norm timesfor ages, enables a judgment to be made of the learner’s fine motor skills development compared with his age peers. Good performance requires effective rhythmic control. The learner’s rhythmic competence is also readily apparent.

(5) The student’s accuracy of motor control may be calculated later from the misses recorded by dots outside the target circles

(6) Unduly heavy pencil pressure, which can often inhibit and impair writing skills is clearly evident, from heavy marks or tears in the paper, and can be remediated.

Three dyslexic student performances on “Dotting Speed” related to their handwriting difficulties , and their expression of meaning through writing

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In his early pre-school years, PB printed letters right handed, but for drawing and painting, used his left hand. When he went to school at age 4 years, he was ‘persuaded’ by his infant teacher to become a consistent right hand user. But this did not solve his “handedness” and “directionality” issues. He has always been, and continues to be very confused about lefts and rights, and makes frequent embarrassing errorswhen devising time lines, following directions, and coherentlysequencing his expression of ideas in complex written answers.

PB was a “late developing dyslexic”, who was first identified at university. In his early education, he showed good phonological awareness, and his word recognition skills were effective. At age six years, he was considered by his teachersto have no literacy difficulties. As his years in school increased and the quality of his interaction with his curriculum deteriorated, his parents repeatedly questioned that judgement. But strongly influenced by the then current definition of dyslexia as a “phonological problem”, and the consistent phonological difficulties shown by dyslexic students identified and receiving help in the school’s “Unit”,his school refused to offer specialist help.

By the age of fourteen years, PB showed significant difficulty in reading comprehension skills. While he wrote very artistically, he achieved only 30% of the speed expected of a student of his age and ability. He frequently left semantically confusing gaps between parts of words, and one teacher accurately described his writing, and written expression of ideas as “Not joined up.”

On the “Dotting Speed Test”, he recorded a right hand time of15.7 seconds and a left hand time of 14.9 seconds. Even thoughhe wrote with his right hand, these times suggested marginal left hand superiority, but placed him very much in the 1-0-1 ambivalent centre of the laterality dimension.

His motor skills deficiencies restricted his development of the kinesthetic - visual, kinesthetic - auditory, and kinesthetic - semantic sections of the Visual –Auditory – Kinesthetic -Semantic linkages required for the extraction of meaning from text, and the written expression of ideas.

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Despite his good early phonological awareness and effective word recognition skills, he showed very significant, later arising difficulties in the extraction, manipulation and expression through speech and writing, of meaning derived fromtext. At university, his tutors identified his difficulties asdyslexia, and he was given special consideration and help. He successfully completed his degree course.

The second example, JC, is the eldest of two children in a family which shows a strong genetically determined incidence of motor skills deficiencies, working memory limitations , and literacy learning difficulties. Many of his cousins are recorded as showing similar literacy problems. Perhaps surprisingly, the early development of his physical skills wasconsidered to be precocious, and his gross motor skills have always been regarded as “good”, but there is always a “but” attached to that endorsement.

He has also shown inconsistencies in body awareness, laterality and hand preference. He writes with his right hand,but is considered to have a ‘ good eye’ for hitting a moving ball, and plays ball games quite expertly with his left hand. There is some incidence of left handedness in his immediate family. At home, when using knives, forks, tools, and equipment, he happily switches them from one hand to the other, without loss of speed or skill. In school , his consistent if clumsy use of the.pencil in his right hand has concealed his laterality ambivalence, and his teachers seem not to be aware of his position in the uncertain middle of the laterality dimension.They regard him as being an ‘ordinary’ right hander, who is qualitatively no different from other right handers in his class, and he has received no additional training or help in motor skills development, or left – right sequencing training.Administration of the Chasty Dotting Speed Test would have facilitated his teachers’ fuller understanding of his complex motor deficiencies.

JC’s school did not recognize the nature and extent of his serious dyslexic difficulties. He was given some literacy support with other reading failing students, but the programmewas determined by what school could provide, rather than what

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JC needed. For him, this special programme was inappropriately directed towards developing phonological awareness skills, which he did not need. He had good early phonological skills, but had very poor motor skills, and limited reading comprehension, spelling and writing skills.

At age 9 years, on the Dotting Speed Test, he recorded a right hand time of 23.8 seconds and a left hand time of 23.2 seconds. These times are similar and some 20% above average. They confirm that JC is in the uncertain centre of the laterality dimension, and has marked fine motor skills deficiencies. His pen grip is awkward, angular, and does not facilitate ease and flexibility of use of the writing implement.

Figure 2. Examples of JC’s drawing and writing.

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The third example is Pearse, who wrote about the Battle of Hastings, (see Figure 3 below).

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The sample of Pearse’s writing is very important in facilitating his identification as being dyslexic. At age 8 years, Pearse is very bright, with a WISC verbal IQ of 136, and a Performance IQ of 120. His high ability tends to concealhis literacy difficulties, which will appear to become more acute, as he grows older.

Pearse shows competent early verbal, speech, vocabulary and phonological skills, but has difficulty in fine motor control and motor and visual short term memory skills. He shows increasing difficulty in reading comprehension skills, and expressing his ideas competently in writing.

His spelling skills were regarded by the psychologist who tested him as ‘adequate’. Spelling is usually tested by means of standardized spelling tests. Generally, children with language learning difficulties perform badly on such tests. But, when tested on the Vernon Graded word Spelling Test, Pearse reached a 7 year 6 month level which was considered not to be significantly below his age standard. It is evident that in the test situation, Pearse had sufficient time to think about the dictated word, focus all his abilities upon it, and work out what its spelling might be, so he responded relatively effectively upon this test.

However, a more effective way of testing spelling is to calculate the student's percentage error rate in a piece of timed continuous writing on a complex subject. On this measure, calculated on the sample of continuous writing in Figure 3, his error rate is unexpectedly high. The expression of ideas in continuous writing stresses his working memory capacity to a high degree, and he does not have the luxury of available free memory capacity to recall and express the ideasand simultaneously manage, the constituent subskills of writing and spelling. This leads to incorrectfactual recall. This battle was fought at Senlac Hill, not Buckler Hill. It is in this working memory stressing timed writing condition that he shows weakness in operational subsidiarity which limits his recall of stored factual knowledge and his dyslexia related skills management difficulties become most clearly apparent.

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On the Chasty test of dotting speed he shows a right hand timeof 30.2 sends and a left hand time of 31.4 seconds. These times are some 50% above average and indicate that his fine motor skills with both hands are extremely slow and uncertain.This is reflected in his very slow and poorly controlled cursive writing, which in places loses semantically important letter joins, and degenerates back to print script.

The dotting speed times are very similar, showing only marginal right hand superiority, and while Pearse holds his pencil in a normal right hand grip, he is in the middle of the laterality dimension, and much closer to ambidexterity than would otherwise be evident. This leads to line tracking and directional sequencing problems and confusions which are evident in his writing and spelling.

Consequently he finds it difficult to hold the required directional line across the page. His management of letter directional sequencing in spelling is also very limited. Notehis correction of OWN for WON and the spelling of OTHER as OHTER. he makes a very significant 45% spelling error rate. Itis apparent that when his limited working FIGURE 3. FREE WRITING OF PEARSE ON THE BATTLE OF HASTINGS

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memory is heavily loaded with ideas and strategies in history,Pearse has little available free capacity to manage his schemafor spelling and consequently produces a much higher spelling error rate than his recorded spelling test competence would suggest The clear operational conflict between storage and processing demands in working memory when writing, greatly reduces his spelling capability in that situation.

What is important is not his level of skill in uncomplicated conditions, but the efficiency with which he controls and applies that skill to the required delivery of his spelling knowledge through his limited working memory, in a complex situation where spelling is not the central issue. He is unable to use operational subsidiarity to delegate spelling and writing skills to a lower level of operational control to free higher level control to manage his coherent expression ofideas about the Battle of Hastings. Without this management skill his otherwise competent spelling and writing skills fallapart. It is in such multi-dimensional situations which place a heavy load upon working memory, that the most significant effects of his language / literacy failure will be observed.

Testing using the “Dotting Speed Test” provided much fuller insights into the skills deficiencies of these three students,and enabled these to be documented in much greater detail, for inclusion in their skills development programme.

Incidence of left handedness

Across the world, and through the history of mankind, right and left hand incidence figures vary with genetic factors which may be modified by the particular prestige informationprocessing and motor skills required by the culture, its life-style, and its evolving language.

Generally, current macro studies of laterality suggest thatsome 85%+ of the population of the economically developed, literate, verbally thinking, world are right handed, some 7%+ are left handed, and by a simple calculation, it is clear thatsome 8-10% are ambidextrous, and / or do not know which is their preferred hand.

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Brandler and Paracchini (2014) report : ”Worldwide, more than 85% of individuals are right handed. This suggests that there is an advantage to being right handed, but begs the question of why there are left handers.”

The answer to Brandler and Paracchini’s “begged” question seems to be that across the history of the world, there are many situations which are more frequently evident in carefullydirected micro studies, where the environmentally determined incidence of right hemisphere neurological specialisation which leads to this left handedness or no handedness , is (orwas) culturally advantageous.

This different sensory motor skills grouping is in accord withthe semantic processing requirements of the language used in that culture, and also meets the strong demands of every-day living skills requirements. Child doffers and spinners in parttime employment in Belfast linen mills found right hemisphere visual processing and ambidexterity to be advantageous in their long and arduous shifts in the mills, and this over- rode the conflicting neurological demand for right handedness leading to effective literacy in the establishment required language form in the national education system.

Advantage for one generation may trigger epigenetic effects which bring disadvantage to subsequent generations.(see Spector 2012). Despite living in very significantly improved socio-economic conditions, the following generations of these mill workers’ families showed continuing right hemisphere, or no hemisphere neurological specialism. (see Chasty 1973, and 2015). While this neurological specialism was NOT advantageousto these later generations, it clearly was to the earliest familial generation labouring in the mills, from whom the epigenetic effects which over-ruled the familial genome, stemmed. It is still not known how long these epigenetic effects last, and how long it will take for these originally lower working class families to return to the currently accepted default left hemisphere – right handed neurological specialism model.

Consideration of the currently accepted default position: 81%- 85% of the population are right handed

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A good early example of this research into the frequency of handedness is found in Gerald Groden’s (1969) study., “Lateralpreferences in normal children.” In a sample of 145 normally achieving New York school children aged 5 – 11 years, he judged ‘handedness’ on the results of a range of some 16 tests. These included writing, drawing, throwing, cutting, kicking, hopping, kicking repeated, hopping repeated, the eye used with a kaleidoscope, the ABC Vision test, sighting through a hole in cardboard, kaleidoscope repeated, ear for listening, ear to door, ear to kaleidoscope, repeated, and ear to wall. Groden reported that 81% of his sample were consistently right handed, 6% were consistently left handed and 13% were classified as ‘mixed’ or did not know. Brandler and Paracchini’s (2014) figures show very similar results

Parents and teachers should note that these figures confirm that regardless of whether they regularly used their left or right hand, one child in eight, or four children in every class, will have no preferred hand, or will not know which istheir preferred hand. Superficial observation of the hand actually holding thepencil may be very misleading.

Also, it is evident that laterality is not a question of absolute left or right. Indeed, some researchers prefer to describe it as right or non-right. However, laterality is now generally regarded as a continuum or dimension, with some individuals at the extreme right hand end, most individuals inthe middle right side of the distribution, some 13% in the ‘uncertain middle’ of the dimension with neither right nor left hand being predominant, and 6-7% at the extreme left handend of the dimension. Qualitative differences in language usage may be observed across these different laterality – handedness groupings.

In considering the effects of handedness upon illiteracy, there are therefore three groups which should be considered. These are (i) a very large group of moderate to extreme righthanders. (ii) A smaller group of uncertain laterality - handedness students, who, regardless of the hand they actuallyuse, experience significant directional difficulties. These

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students fall on both sides of the left – right divide, and have been described as 1, 0, 1 students, because of their central placing on the laterality dimension. (iii) A much smaller group of moderate to extreme left handers.

A greater incidence of literacy, writing and spelling difficulties is found in group (ii) students.

Position on the laterality dimension illustrated in Figure 4 below, is determined by, and linked to two principal aspects, (i) the neurological architectural form and (ii) the extent ofneuronal development of the learner’s cerebral specialism. The level of skill developed with the preferred hand derives from this neurological shape and neuronal structure, and is a secondary aspect of motor performance which affects the learner’s work in school. Left hemisphere cerebral specialism,as reported by Yeatman et al, (2011) and Lopez-Baroso et al , (2013) resulting in appropriate literacy supporting neural linkages, such as the superior development of the left arcuate fasciculus, linking sounds with the motor control facility to say them, is the key to successful speech and literacy skills in most alphabetic - phonological language forms.

Regardless of whether the learner prefers to write with the left or right hand, and the level of skill he has developed inthat hand, if he is in the 1-0-1 position in the middle of thelaterality dimension, (group (ii) as described above,) some aspects of his sensory information processing requiring a developed sense of body and spatial awareness will be at risk, i.e. :-

(1) Depending upon the particular structure of the language being learned, left- right or right – left tracking, as required in language processing, word recognition, letter order in spelling, sentence structure, and the cognitively and linguistically acceptable sequencing of expressed meaning;

(2)The application of motor skills to the mechanics of writing: i.e., the representation of meaning by culturally acceptable glyphs placed in an acceptably sequenced directional order.

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(3)Spatial awareness, giving access to appropriate placement upon the page in literacy, line tracking in reading, consistent horizontal line following in writing, numerical progression and place value in numeracy.

(4)The acquisition of effective motor memory competences required in spelling, writing, and figure making.

FIG. 4: DISTRIBUTION OF HANDEDNESS IN NORMAL CHILDREN FROM A DEVELOPED LITERATE ‘WESTERN’ ENVIRONMENT

The skewedness, or shift to the right from the 0 position, in the diagram above should be noted. This is an attribute particular to very large scale G20 type , economically developed, literate nation, “macro” studies. But this diagram may not reflect the skills distribution found in other smaller58

micro studies of ‘more local’ populations, or societies, usinga language form where the effective conveyance of meaning through speech, and the extraction and manipulation of meaningthrough reading /literacy, is less important, and less effectively developed.

In this ‘alternative’ sub-culture, other motor skills development, linked to higher level visuo-spatial sensory processing may be required, and more highly valued. This alternative neurological development is often founded in, and integral with a more visually based linguistic -semantic structure, arising from a much less phonologically and verbally developed communication system.

Groden chose the title of his study with some care. He was aware that the term “normal” was essential for defining the population he required to determine the academically acceptable, paradigm consistent, majority left – right balance. If an undue proportion of speech / literacy failing students who could not be classified as “ achieving a normal standard in school”, had been included in the research sample,the right, left, mixed balance would have been significantly altered in favour of left or no handedness.

If Groden had carried out his testing using only the members of the local Brooklyn Art Club as his research sample, he would have recorded a very different left – no handedness – right handedness balance which reflected the neurological organization leading to the much more strongly developed visual sensory preferences of this group, within the language structure they spoke.

A micro research group comprised of garment workers from Greenwich Village would also have recorded very different left– no handedness – right handedness balance. There would probably have been even more significant differences in the left – no handedness – right handed balance, if Groden had chosen his research sample from the 14,000 largely illiterate inmates of the infamous Rikers Island Penitentiary, located onthe East River, between Queens and the Bronx.

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All these citizens are classifiable as belonging to the New York “community”, but in a “macro” study, their individual laterality – handedness developments related to their particular local cultural environmental circumstances, and the form of language they used, were swamped and concealed bythe greater preponderance of the laterality – handedness development of “normal, establishment”, literate, New York people using the “establishment” language code.

The right shift in Figure 4 above, and the 6% left- 13% no handed – 81% right balance reported by Groden, reflected the sensory development of that wider society within its existing language structure, and broader work situational demands. In adifferent society, using a different language structure, and operating in a different working / living situation, a different left / right balance may be anticipated.

Therefore, left / right hand preference should not be seen as a predictable, stable world statistic. Hand preference seems to be more meaningfully interpreted as an interesting but variable measure, which reflects the major sensory - motorskills patterns required by a particular family, tribe or society, meeting its local communication, language and work demands. Large scale studies carried out over huge, literate,verbally skilled national / international populations will conceal these important local tribal / familial variations, which may be excluded from the test sample by the qualifying term “normal”, and so are not adequately reflected in the testing carried out.

Consideration must also be given to the possibility that in inthe ongoing process of language evolution, the search for superior representation of digital meaning required in the developing technologies of local working cultures in the middle 21st.century, language structural forms may yet again return to visual pictographic , rather than alphabetical - phonological representation. In social communication there is also a move to pictographic forms such as “emojis” to express meaning to adherents and exclude elders, who do not understand this language form. This may lead to a further development of bilingualism, or multi-lingualism in language usage, where learners / operators have a culturally

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dependent language for learning and education, and a very differently structured language for the technology demanded inthe work situation, or , social communication within a limitedpeer based social group. In such circumstances, it will be necessary for participants to have developed metacognitive flexibility in using the most appropriate representational form, in the particular processing situation in which they find themselves.

In those circumstances, literacy is not uni-dimensional, righthanded, phonic – verbal, but may become multi-dimensional or truly multi-sensory in the multi-literate society required forsuccess in the technologically more advanced cultures, using very different preferred communication systems, developing in the middle to later 21st. century.

Consideration of Chief Myeengun’s Ojibwe language visual matrix, related to the different neurological organization required for reading a ‘visual’ language

This matrix below, in Figure 5, represents the story of an Ojibwe chief called Myeengun, which in the Ojibwe language, means the Wolf. It depicts an important tribal event from the late 17th. century. Myeengun and his warriors travelled to meet and defeat a large group of interlopers who had threatened the security and resources of the Ojibwe people. Soimportant was this victory to the tribe, that the elders decided it must be recorded for posterity to think about, appreciate and understand. It was enscribed , some say by Myeengun himself, within the tribal heartlands, on a shelteredcliff face on the northern shores of Lake Superior.

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FIGURE 5

Ojibwe was a spoken language, using some 17 consonants , 3 short and 4 long vowels. Requiring only some 24 phonemes,within a possible range of 11 to 140+ phonemes foundin languages across the world, Ojibwe is not a particularly fast evolving or phonologically sophisticated language. There are four mutually intelligible dialects of this speech form. This language form did not have a written orthography until after 1840, when, without Ojibwe support , Christian missionaries devised and imposed an English language based written form upon the tribe.

So when expressing important ideas about Myeengun’s expeditionfor posterity, the phonemic system for representation of words by visual symbols related to the language sounds in “writing”, with which we are familiar , was not available to those tribal elders. Perhaps more significantly because of their genetically determined, neurologically based, sensory

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motor competences, such a system would not have made sense to the Ojibwe “readers”.

The matrix above is not a simple work of art. It has been classified by experts in the field, as an example of a pictographic ‘language’, conveying complex visually represented meaning. Alice J.M.Colson who has written extensively about these matters, cautions against considering this as art, because viewing the matrix as a picture detractsfrom its real purpose, which is the effective conveyance of its implicit meaning.

Tribal skills required in the Obijwe life, at that time.

At the time this matrix was produced, the Obijwe called themselves Aneshinaabeg, which means the original people. Thistitle reflects their unique history, very different culture, and significantly different, non-European, non- alphabetic phonetic language roots, as the indigenous inhabitants, who pre-dated by many millennia, the French, Dutch, and English incomers to that part of the world. Originally itinerant, theyfinally settled and lived on the north side of Lake Superior, in hogans or wigwams constructed from a lattice of tree branches overlaid with tree bark, and woven mats. The women were subsistence farmers, picking “wild rice” which grew naturally on local streams and swamps, and gathering berries, nuts, and roots. They augmented this natural diet by growing corn, squash, beans and tobacco, and making maple syrup. The men were skilled fishermen and hunters, who used traps and guns which they obtained through trade with the Dutch and French. Over a period of some fifty years after this matrix was enscribed, the Obijwe were transformed unduly rapidly froma largely agricultural people into hunters by the lucrative European demand for furs.

The Obijwe society was not particularly linguistically developed, nor was it technologically sophisticated. The Obijwe showed the sensory motor skills appropriate for their cultural lifestyle and its language demands. The Obijwe did not consider themselves or their culture to be inferior to theincoming Dutch, French and English. Commenting upon their attitudes and skills, a social historian of that time observed

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that the Obijwe spoke no word of English, and evinced neither desire nor ability to learn the phonologically complex EnglishLanguage.

The neurological organisation of a group of early English farmers and farm labourers, who lived a similar life-style, was described by Blackburn and Knusel (2006) as showing no developed hemispheric specialism. This agrarian sub-populationdid not need to read, and right hand specialism would have been a handicap. This society required bi-lateral sensory motor skills to support its farming life-style.

Given the unsophisticated and technologically simple life the Obijwe lived at that time, it is reasonable to infer that theytoo, would have shown similar lack of neurological specialism.They would not have shown left hemisphere / right hand superiority, but would have had better skills when coordinating two hands working together with two eyes. They would have had only limited phonological – verbal language skills, but that specialism was unnecessary in the Obijwe language. The observation that they had no aptitude or neurological organizational skills for learning the English language appears to have been accurate. The sensory motor skills clusters they had, were entirely suited to their cultural language and life-style.

Detailed consideration of the Obijwe visual matrix

Before reading the verbal description in the following paragraph, study the matrix, and then answer the following questions, treating this as a visual comprehension exercise. Think about whether you answered directly (from visual memory)or whether you had to keep looking back at the picture to ineffectively use verbal systems requiring inefficient cross-modal sensory transfers, to answer visual problems. Such an approach would greatly reduce your efficiency and increase your response times (just like a child with English language based phonological dyslexia, inappropriately using good visualskills when reading a complex verbal script).

Myeengun Comprehension Test

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How many warriors were in the second canoe?

How many warriors were in the fourth canoe?

Who commanded the leading canoe?

How long did the expedition last?

How do you know that the expedition returned safely to land?

How do you know that the warriors behaved courageously?

Now let us consider, in words, put together using the complex English phonological – linguistic – semantic structure, the meaning conveyed by that matrix - picture. On this expedition, five canoes were used to carry, in the first sixteen men, in the second nine men, in the third ten men, in the fourth and fifth eight men. The leading canoe was commanded by Kishkemuncsee whose totem sign is above it. The three suns shown under the vault of the sky on the right hand side confirm that the expedition took three days. The man on horseback on land is the shaman, or maker of magic, whose magical skills facilitated the success of the expedition. The land tortoise in the centre shows that the warriors came safely back to land. The eagle on the left symbolizes the courage the men showed. The monstrous creatures at the bottom were invoked to lend their aid to this difficult and dangerousexpedition.

It is clear that the flow of ideas contained in this matrix commences at the top right, and develops to the left, and downwards to the bottom left. This is evident from the directions faced by the animals included, and the coherent flow of the ideas. It is essential to work this out before answering questions 1,2, and 3.

This picture is certainly 'worth a thousand words' in any language, recording and conveying much information very economically in a way which most English “reading failing” children with language disadvantage / dyslexia would readily understand. But phonologically and verbally skillful expert

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grammarians, such as you and me, with our long experience in left - right phonological - semantic processing, might struggle to appreciate the deeper meaning.

How well did you do? Were you a 2 correct out of 6 mediocre visual comprehender, or a 5 correct out of 6 visual star?

Did you appreciate, and using visual working memory, store inlong term memory, the deeper meaning of the visual symbols, oronly the general surface impression? Or, did you use cross-modal transfers to store visual information inadequately and inefficiently using your skilled but inappropriate phonological / verbal systems, just like a dyslexic student reading English, and using available visual systems inadequately to manipulate and store inappropriate phonological – verbal information?

How would you make out, if your educational future, employment prospects and wider social status depended upon your visual analytical and representational skills, and you were obliged to provide detailed logical examination answers to curriculum based questions posed in this visual language format?.

Failure in language learning is directly linked to the student’s lack of the essential sensory motor skills required by that language semantic structure .

Having thought about your own techniques and score on the questions above, a further point must be made. Many readers /learners who have excellent phonological skills, and who are expert in reading complex alphabetic phonological languages such as English, but have very much less well developed visualand motor processing skills, would find this “visual language matrix” to be very difficult, and fail so significantly to “read” and understand it, that they might be classified as “dyslexic” in this very different language format.

I have been experimenting with the Chief Myeengun “comprehension test”. The limited results obtained so far, confirm that students with phonological dyslexia in English, who, as part of their cognitive profile, have much better

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motor and visual short term memory and perceptual skills than auditory and phonological short term memory and perceptual skills, tend to do significantly better on this test than teachers and academics with better auditory and phonological short term memory and perceptual skills but only mediocre, much less well developed visual memory and perceptual skills.

As was concluded in the study of my Zulu – English speaking South African student discussed above, genetically linked sensory motor competences developed within a culture, for its particular language structure, are not universal, and do not transfer directly into a similar level of competence in a different language structure.

This suggests that with one form of neurological specialism which leads to a particular set of short term memory and perceptual skills, a student may do well in learning one particular type of language form which requires those memory and perceptual skills, but may fail so badly in an alternativelanguage form which requires a different neurological organizational structure, necessitating different perceptual skills, that they could be defined as dyslexic in that language. Such neurological structural differences between learners of different languages have recently been confirmed by Ge et al (2015). Their important findings have been discussed in some detail earlier in this paper.

This impacts upon definitions of dyslexia

So what does that tell us about the applicability to this particular language, and indeed, across all world languages, of the currently questionable definition of dyslexia as a difficulty in phonology, limiting the learner’s speaking, reading and writing of the language form? Such a definition appears not to be relevant to this ‘visual matrix’ type of language, but only to relate to the extreme, opaque alphabetical - phonological languages such as English.

Ultimately, across all world languages, dyslexia should not be described, solely as a phonological skills failure to identify and say the sounds represented by printed words. That

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description applies only to a small part of the illiterate population, in a small part of the world language inventory.

Across all world languages, dyslexia is most appropriately described as a failure along any of the relevant but varyingsensory dimensions, motor, auditory, visual, necessary to acquire the appropriate sensory - linguistic – semantic structure, of the user’s language. This leads directly to failure to derive, manipulate, and think with the implicit meaning conveyed by that language. (See also the discussion ondefinitions of dyslexia in Dr. Harry Chasty in Academia.edu)

Does the form of the language to be learned, lead to the genetic determination of the neurologically based sensory skills required for that learning process?

The form of the language structure which students must learn and understand to derive its implicit sense, determines the individual cognitive sensory skills patterns which are “appropriate”, and also those that are “inappropriate” to gaining the sense of that particular language, and so, are characteristic of “dyslexia” in that language, as used in thatsociety. These language structural differences impact upon thecultural genome, and fix the genetically determined neurological structure that the majority (80%?) of learners inthat culture bring to their successful language acquisition. The remaining (up to 20%) of students who are failing in theircultural language, show genetically determined, neurologically based “inappropriate” sensory motor skills patterns. But these ‘inappropiate’ skills clusters are not consistent across the world, and may vary very significantly from language to language; society to society.

The ‘different’ sensory motor skills clusters leading to breakdown in literacy failure at different ages / stages in different languages.

Down history, and across the world, the very wide structural contrasts of transparent and opaque alphabetic - phonologicallanguages, logographic languages, and pictograph based visual matrices, make different demands for effective neurological / sensory motor systems for successful speaking,

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reading and thinking. Some of these languages use very simple and direct phonological structures, and the sensory skills development necessary to manage these systems is also simple. In such languages, linguistic break down will occur late in the student’s language and thinking development. It must therefore be anticipated that the characteristic “dyslexic” breakdown of literacy and verbal thinking skills acquisition will occur at different ages – stages, in relation to the different sensory skills needed, in the different processing techniques necessary, to establish the different linguistic structures required, to gain meaning from the recorded shapes viewed in different languages.

As languages have evolved, there has been an important shift in the neurological base to the sensory skills needed to learnlanguages.

In the evolution of languages, there has been a gradual shift from visual to verbal - phonological representation of ideas.Concomitantly a different neurological specialism in language learners, changing from right to left hemisphere dominance hasbeen observed. It is not yet clear whether this neurological change is causal, or an effect of the observed change in language structural form. Nor is it clear how universal these neurological changes are, nor how permanent they may be, as our most advanced technological societies show tendencies to moving back towards visual representation of information.

In the development of Homo sapiens, the processing of recorded language information began 3500 - 5000 years ago, in the visual dimension; using systems similar to those shown above, in the depiction of Chief Myeengun's expedition. This type oflanguage form has been observed in ancient Chinese, Sumerian and Egyptian civilisations. It was based upon pictographs, which were ideograms conveying meaning by their clear resemblance to the object being described.

In most languages, over a lengthy period of time, representation of meaning for others shifted from visual towards the developing and increasingly important verbal / phonological aspects. Pictographs subsequently evolved into logographic writing systems around 3000 BCE, when the idea of

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using a pictograph for the totally novel function of representing a sound, seems to have been devised simultaneously but apparently, separately, without recorded inter-tribal communication, in Mesopotamia by the Sumerians, in China by the Chinese, in Central America by the Mayans, andin Egypt by the Egyptians .

Brain specialism leading to individual neurological organization has varied to facilitate the language processing and prestigious visuo-motor skills required by the “tribe”. This leads to cultural variations in handedness.

While there is a genetic factor to left – right handedness which runs in tribes and families, this is not wholly consistent from one generation to the next. It is not a predictably direct, ‘ gene determines handedness’ relationship. Handedness is affected to some extent by the major core motor skills and language processing required by the particular culture in which the child lives and learns. In cultures with very specialized motor / hand skills requirements, anomalies are apparent resulting in incidence figures differing significantly from the 80% right handed statistic quoted by Groden (1969), and currently accepted in the literature for developed literate societies, as shown in Figure 4 above.

In social history we find regularly occurring examples of genetic variations in the default “dominant left hemisphere moderating and controlling right hand – phonology- speech -language - reading skills – verbal thinking skills” position. Through epigenetic modifications different locally important, culturally determined neurological- hand - eye skills characteristics, may become epigenetically acquired over the short to longer term. This leads to right hemisphere, or nohemisphere specialism resulting in “not right”, i.e., left orno handedness and giving rise to a different ongoing corpus of physical, motor, language and thinking skills valued by that society. Most significantly, the acquired neurological and motor characteristics as determined by those particular cultural requirements seem to affect, through epigenetics, thelater genetic disposition of the following generations for neurological organization and language learning. Some examples

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of this kind of variation, recorded down social history, are documented beneath, for consideration.

In the Old Testament at Judges 20, verse 16, an interesting report of the beneficial effects of developed left handed implementation of visuo-spatial skills in inter-personal conflict, is recorded. “Among these soldiers were 700 chosen men, Benjamites, who were left handed, each of whom could sling a stone at a hair and not miss.” At that time, in the Hebrew tribe of Benjamin, the need to develop strength, speed and accuracy in left handed use of the sling as a weapon of war was highly prized and practised, resulting in that tribe, in an incidence of handedness and hemispheric specialism which was very different from what has been reported by Grodenin normal children living in New York in the 1960s.

This developed left hand skill pattern was not restricted solely to the tribe of Benjamin, but had wider relevance across the tribes of Israel. In figure 5 above, is seen another very famous sling shot expert of that era, who was a member of the tribe of Judah. He brought down the heavily armored , Goliath of Gath with a well aimed stone passing under his protective helmet to strike him on the forehead.

Art experts commenting upon Michelangelo’s inspirational and very detailed representation of David, have concluded that themuscular disposition of the body, facial and neck muscles indicate that David has been depicted in the final seconds before launching his attack on Goliath. He holds his sling, ready for immediate use, in his left hand, over his left shoulder and draped down his back.

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FIGURE 5: DAVID: A SLING SHOT EXPERT

.There are also reports from the middle ages, of a particularly high incidence of left handedness linked to skilled use of the sword by the Kerr Clan in the Borders of Scotland. They built Ferniehirst Castle, commanding the strategically important cross-border road to Otterburn and Newcastle, with an extremely unusual but cleverly conceived counter clockwise spiral staircase which facilitated the left handed Kerr swordsmen defending it, and impeded the generally right handed English attackers. The Kerrs showed surprisingly detailed understanding of laterality / handedness giving rise to high level visuo-motor competences, and appeared to be. fully aware of the advantages of this ‘handedness’ specialism.Clearly at that time, in that tribe, there was an advantage tobeing left handed, which greatly out-weighed any possible negative effects in literacy difficulties. This was reflected in the genome of the “clan” , and reinforced by early motor skills training.

In his poem, “Raid of the Kerrs”, the Scottish poet James Hogg(1770-1835) wrote:-

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“But the Kerrs were eye the deadliest foesThat e’er to Englishmen were knownFor they were all bred left handed menAnd fence (defence) against them there was none.”

If laterality handedness testing had been carried out in the Kerr/Carr clan at the time of their ascendency in the Borders,it is likely that a very different left - no handedness – right handedness balance would have been recorded than was found by Groden in 1969, and Brandler and Parracchini in 2014.

Further to this, an article appeared in the British Medical Journal circa 1972, which reported that some 30% of people with the surname Kerr were still left handed. However, Shaw and McManus (1993) found that left handedness in the Kerrs (or Carrs) they tested did not diverge significantly from the norm. The earlier predominance of left handedness in the clan seems to have been diluted and dissipated by current cultural, language, and environmental motor skills / handedness / hemispheric specialism requirements. A different environmentally determined, culturally and language structurally appropriate genetic predisposition to left hemispheric specialism has been acquired by the descendants ofthis tribe.

Blackburn and Knusel (2006) measured the width of both elbows of people living in their community, and found that the9:1 ratio of large to small elbows matched the right to left statistical incidence of handedness, reflecting hemispheric specialism in that community. The elbows of skeletons recovered from a cemetery for a mediaeval British farming community were also measured. It was found that left and rightelbows were the same size. It was concluded that in this wholly agricultural community, the population was required to use both hands equally, in accord with two eyes working together, but were not required to use literacy as a fundamentally important skill in their adult lifestyle . Consequently, the members of this community showed no developed lateral dominance.

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At that time, literacy was very much a matter reserved for thenobility, intelligentsia, religious orders and clergy. Within the agricultural community investigated, it was extremely unlikely that, the farmers, labourers and their families interred in that cemetery had developed reading, writing and spelling skills associated with functional brain asymmetry. Their similar left and right elbow dimensions, reflected not just their developed bi-lateral hand skills required in theirwork situation, but also their lack of left brain hemispheric specialism for literacy.

I have noted and studied over some 50 years, the continuing incidence of reading difficulties in successive generations offamilies, where a member was employed part-time, a century ago, as a child doffer or spinner in the coercive environment of the linen mills of Belfast or the cotton mills of Wichendon, Massachusetts. The illiteracy recorded in successive generations of these families is attributable to epigenetically determined right hemispheric specialism. This form of sensory specialism was advantageous in the mill where it led to better visuo-spatial problem solving required in spotting full bobbins and broken threads in a fast moving visual array, and more skillful hand – eye coordination withtwo hands working together to join the threads and remove the full bobbins. Sadly, however, it also resulted in concomitant illiteracy in the phonologically complex English language required in the ‘establishment’ education system.

Nor are these neurological / handskill / language development variations limited to historic circumstances. For those who look carefully, examples of similar variations may be found currently in pockets, across all societies world-wide. Cultural differences in the incidence of handedness in relation to literacy development are currently apparent in some areas of the U.K.

A few years ago, I had a very interesting discussion on this theme with a UK local education authority psychologist, whose ‘patch’ was referred to in that area, as “silicon valley” because it contained an exceptionally high incidence of computer and information technology companies. He informed me that the local schools in that area recorded an unusually high

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incidence of reading difficulty, in association with confusions in laterality and handedness, in children whose parents worked in the information technology industries.

He speculated that these children who appeared to be otherwise bright and intelligent, seemed to inherit their reading difficulties from their parents, who were adept at using two hands on a computer and showed a different cerebral specialism which resulted in the highly creative visuo-spatial thinking capability required in their working life, but generally in association with diminished literacy capability and reduced verbally mediated problem solving skills.

While it is accepted that this evidence is purely anecdotal, my own experience of testing and working with the children of parents with very highly developed information processing skills confirms his intriguing observations of industrially determined familial right hemisphere specialism leading to literacy difficulties in subsequent generations of these families.

A very surprising article appeared in the recent press, (see Verkaik, 2013). This reported that the very secretive Britishintelligence GCHQ organization had set up a “dyslexia / dyspraxia support group” for workers and their families. The GCHQ management were aware that most of its talented code –breakers had difficulty with reading, were dyslexic, showed unusual ‘handedness’ skills, and serious dyslexia type communication and literacy related problems in work. Despite these communication difficulties with the spoken and printed word, these workers were surprisingly good at their code- breaking job. It was suggested that these employees had unusual, extremely highly developed creative – visual skills, linked to and developed because of their different neurological organization. This resulted in reading disability, but had the advantage of enabling them to visualize and perceive the linguistic ‘whole’, when only small parts were available to them. These workers could, therefore, “see” codes with patterns, repetitions and omissions, which normal readers using their strong left

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hemisphere controlled verbal – phonological literacy based systems, failed to identify.

These demonstrations of genetic determination of culturally acquired, neurologically based characteristics valuable in a particular local industrial / environmental setting, in our present society, is an area of interest upon which further research should be focused

Do not regard these occurrences of different brain specialism and handedness simply as interesting but isolated and unrelated events. They are part of a very important series of culturally driven cognitive developments which generally failed to be recorded because their significance for individual learning, familial literacy, and the sensory skillsdemands of the local socio-economic environment were not contemporaneously appreciated and understood. These factors only appear in the literature of their time when they become much more widely significant.

I suggest that these neurological changes affecting lateralityand impacting upon illiteracy are attributable to “the inheritance of environmentally acquired characteristics” as described initially by Lamarck (1805) and later, more controversially by Paul Kammerer (1924). (See also the glossary for the background to Lamarck and Kammerer’s work) Inthis process which was accepted by Darwin, and included in “Origin of Species”, important skills acquired by the organism or individual in his/her living and working environment, could be passed to succeeding generations.

If success and survival in a particularly environment required different neurological – sensory motor – learning – hand – eye characteristics, it is important and cognitively economic, that such skills became part of the process of immediate genetic inheritance and did not have to be re-invented and re-learned independently, by each succeeding generation reacting to consistent developmental factors in itsenvironment.

Clearly there is a genetic factor to developing neurological architecture, sensory skills, handedness, and subsequent

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learning and literacy skills. This may be reinforced, limited or altered by developing the key techniques demanded by the particular tribe, industry, culture and its related language, whether it is using a sling in Palestine 2000+ years ago, a sword in the Scottish borders, 400+ years ago, doffing or spinning in an early 20th. century Belfast linen mill, or computing or code –breaking in a 21st. century middle England industrial compound. It seems that the prevailing genetic factors determining neurological architecture, handedness, and cognitive skills may be substantially altered by intensive training or by ‘coercive’ environmental experience. These socially advantageous, acquired motor, laterality, cerebral specialisms developed in one generation, then epigenetically, become part of the familial cultural genotype,and are passed to succeeding generations, but also result in ongoing genetically determined illiteracy, or dyslexia.

While currently, in the literature, following macro studies, there appears to be a well documented world- wide prevalence for right handedness, this may not be as universal or consistent as it seems. Micro testing of differently focused local groups may offer a very contrasting and divergent picture. Right hand dominance may be reduced or substantially altered in other contrasting cultures and environments, which require very different patterns of sensory skills to be used in their language communication and literacy, or in every-day use of motor skills and hand – eye coordination in valued work or warfare activities.

Nor can it be assumed that this default left hemisphere specialism resulting in the majority right handedness found in developed literate (G20 type) nations will be an ongoing physical attribute into the middle distant future. Changes in this form of neurological specialism seem to be in course of development. The 80% right handed and left brained default position in developed, literate, economically successful society may not be the end of this evolutionary story. As mankind develops greatly increased technological competences, differently structured, probably visually based languages willbe needed to represent these ideas much more effectively than is currently possible in the overly complex phonological – linguistic – semantic structure of English. Clearly this is an

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area where further research is necessary, but large scale international surveys may miss the point which may be more readily apparent in small tribes, families, and technological groupings, using indigenous language varieties, in very specialized local socio-economic circumstances.

Cultural differences in early motor skills development stemming from child rearing practices.

In this country, according to the Griffiths Infant Intelligence Scales, the child sits up with slight support at 6 months, sits unaided at 9 months, stands with hands held at10 months, creeps at 11 months, stands alone at 13 months, andwalks at 14 months. At 24 months he/she can jump, and at 36 months he/she can cut with scissors, and run on his/ her toes.

In marked contrast, norms reported by Geber (1958) indicate that Ugandan children living in the Kampala region sit uprightwith slight support at 4 months, sit alone at 5.5 months, stand with hands held at 6 months, creep at 7 months, stand alone at 7 months, and walk at 9.5 months. When compared with children from an English environment, the motor development ofUgandan children is significantly advanced.

The reasons for this appear to be socio-cultural. In England ,and across the developed world, a generally ‘laisser faire’ attitude is adopted to motor skills development. It is not given any particular priority, nor is it enhanced in any way. Indeed, in larger families or single parent families, particularly those living in deprived circumstances in limitedspace or ‘high rise’ developments, the early acquisition of mobility by the young child only leads to a significant (oftenunwelcome) increase in the supervision problems of the mother or carer. Parents/ carers may, at best, be ambivalent about such development.

In Eastern European state run ‘orphan’ nurseries, a high incidence of significant cognitive deficits linked to significant limitations in early motor skills development, hasbeen recorded in children who, as infants, were secured and restrained in their cots. This physical restriction

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prevented vital early motor skills development, which resulted in serious cognitive impairment at a later developmental stage.

However, in the local Ugandan culture in Kampala, the importance of early motor achievement in infants is stressed and encouraged. In the extended family circumstances prevalentin that culture, grandparents, or older members of the extended family are usually available to supervise. Specific training in these important early skills is customarily given to infants, with measurable beneficial effects.

The observed differences in the rates of acquisition of these motor ‘milestones’ in different cultures, confirm that significant benefits in learning arise from social awareness of the possibility of motor skills development, and actual training given at an appropriately early stage. Training in motor skills is clearly beneficial but environmentally and culturally determined limitations upon play in early childhood, can lead to significant retardations in motor skills, with further negative cognitive, literacy and curriculum learning effects later in school.

Growing concern over motor skills deficiencies in the current generation of UK school children.

Modern life in western European economically developed, G 20 type countries has become more sedentary, and orientated towards the greatly increasing use of communication through technology, providing information to be viewed on screen. Concern has been expressed by child experts about the subsequent educational effects of the currently recorded regression in motor skills development. In the present generation of school children, the effects of lack of outdoor play and limited games experience , leading to a measurable reduction in mobility must be considered. This is exacerbated by precocious focusing upon television, computer games, mobile phones and greatly increased use of technology.Within this more sedentary lifestyle, there will be neurological organizational and motor skills developmental limitations in the children entering the education system.

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Increasing world-wide use of technology, now plays a significant part in the currently evident diminution of the use of motor skills for writing by adults. A (2012) study commissioned by the on-line stationers, Docmail, which surveyed 2000 participants, found that the average time since an adult last wrote by hand was 41 days, and some 33% of the participants had not found cause to write anything properly for more than six months. Over 50% of participants accepted that their handwriting had declined noticeably, with some 14% admitting that they were ashamed of their written scripts, and66% reporting that they wrote for their own eyes only, and notfor communicating with others. When communicating through print 25% relied upon predictive text for spelling, and 25% regularly used abbreviations and text-speak. These figures confirm the significant reduction in the use of writing for communicating in this generation, and call into question what the future of handwriting might be.

Dr. Catani, from the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London, a co-author and spokes-person for the Lopez-Baroso (2013), “development of the arcuate fasciculus” research team,has commented uponwhat he regarded as the currently negative trends in developing communication skills in young children. He has expressed his research group’s serious concerns about the currently very prevalent tendency for young children to interact visually with others, on screen, using social web-sites, texts, and emails which are increasingly visually loaded, rather than by face-to-face communication, using language sounds and spoken words. These researchers were concerned that this growing practice would lead to much less effective development of the left arcuate fasciculus in children, resulting in limited phonological awareness, reducedvocabulary skills, and subsequent limitations in literacy andverbal thinking skills.

Mangen and Velay (2010) also examined the problems arising inliteracy development from the use of existing technology. Theyfocused upon the particular importance of handwriting in language learning. Despite greatly increased use of technology at all ages and stages in education, their finding that when learning a language, keyboard typing was much less beneficial than the more direct application of motor skills

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when writing by hand, cannot be overlooked. It had been feared that in the future, handwriting as an activity in school might be concentrated in the age range 4 – 12 years, and after that age, key board skills would take increasing precedence. But it must be stressed that motor skills development is an essential part of the cognitive thinking- verbal representation process, and children learning literacy in our schools, must continue to write by hand. However, to ensure the success of this important cognitive process, teachers may find that they need to apply motor skills tests and development programmes much more widely and intensively than has previously been necessary for past generations of learners.

With increasing use of the newly available communication technologies, the English language is developing and changing very quickly.

Professor John Sutherland, University College, London has reported (2015) on a study he carried out in association with Samsung. He surveyed 2000 families to establish that 86% of parents did not understand the majority of terms their children used in mobile telephone or social media communication.

Abbreviated forms such as “fomo”, i.e., fear of missing out; “icyi”, in case you missed it; “lmk”, let me know; “nsfw” not safe for work, “lol”, laugh out loud, not as interpreted by the Prime Minister, lots of love, can be confusing for parents. But observers of the language form used in current technological communication system, have described these abbreviated forms as outmoded, and “so last century”. Bae, which is a term of affection, and deadout which may mean rubbish, or tired, are cited as examples of confusing new words. Thirsty, which now means looking for attention, is recorded as an example of an extended meaning applied to an existing word within the English lexicon.

Based upon this survey, Sutherland advanced the view that current language communication was moving rapidly back to an earlier pictographic form of communication, where a single

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picture, like Myeengun’s Expedition, conveyed a wide range ofmessages and emoticons.

This has been supported by researchers at Instagram, the photoand video sharing app which has more than 300 million users. They reported that cartoon- style “emojis” are rapidly replacing acronym riddled slang as the principal vehicle used for social communication in modern technology.

These developments have resulted in the DfE strengthening its requirement for teaching written language skills in schools.

In response to the rapid growth in the use of “text-speak”, inthe UK, the Department for Education, has responded to the negative implications of the diminishing handwriting and written representation of ideas skills available to students in secondary education. The former Education Secretary, Michael Gove, made plans to introduce a new national curriculum for secondary schools from September 2014, which highlighted the importance of writing. This new writing curriculum required that at Key Stage Three, pupils aged 11 to14 years “should be taught to write accurately, frequently, and at length, with increasing sophistication, through personal and business letters using the correct form, as well as other forms including stories, poems and essays”. At Key Stage Four, aged 14 to 16 years, students were required to increase the range of their writing and use accurate spelling,punctuation and grammar. It is not clear what effect this initiative will have upon current socially very popular trendsin expressive language usage. It remains to be seen how successful these initiatives might be.

Current sedentary tendencies are limiting motor development and literacy skills.

Concerns arising from the effects of the more sedentary modern life style and much greater use of technology by young children have been expressed by Jeanne Keay, who is the project director of “Start to Move” the recently established (2012) Youth Sport Trust Programme for teachers. She has commented, “There are many examples where a child cannot throw, cannot kick a ball, cannot balance on one foot.

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Sedentary tendencies are contributing to a lack of progressionin physical literacy”.

Dr.Madeleine Portwood, (2010) has reported that some 60% ofthe children aged 3-4 years she tested, could not carry out movements such as walking backwards, or sideways, could not stand on one foot for four seconds, and were unable to throw aball from a distance of 6.5 feet, through two posts, placed two yards apart. At that developmental stage it was anticipated that all 3-4 year olds should successfully carry out these activities. In further testing, she noted that 45% of the children in ‘reception year’ aged 4 to 5 also failed these tasks, and some 30% of 5-6 year olds were unable to carry out these activities. This work recorded serious long-term motor/ physical developmental delays in children entering the education system.

It is apparent that the deprivation and disadvantage discussedearlier in this book, does not affect only language and literacy, but leads to significant concomitant motor skills restrictions which have the effect of predisposing and contributing to even greater language, literacy and curriculum retardations.

Sally Goddard Blythe, Director of the Institute for Neuro-Physiological Psychology in Chester has advised that too many children come to school, unable to sit still, stand up straight, or hold a pencil. She recommends that all children should be tested at age five years, so that children who lack the physical skills required to participate effectively in school lessons can be identified and given appropriate teaching help.

In her new book, Goddard Blythe S. (2014), she reports that increasingly large numbers of children with basic motor developmental problems were slipping “through the net”, so that by age 11 years, they were seriously underachieving in literacy and numeracy tests. She reports, “If basic physical skills are underdeveloped, children are going to struggle….. It introduces a mechanical problem in the action of writing, which may interfere with how much a child writes, or what their handwriting looks like. In some cases, it can also

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interfere with the child’s ability to think and write at the same time, and to express thoughts in written form. These physical problems act as mechanical barriers to the ability totranslate information from the brain, through the body, on to paper.” Her book offers a series of tests to determine students’ competences, and provides a series of physical exercises to “reapply the reflexes and physical co-ordination they should have picked up as toddlers.

Does right hemisphere specialism leading to different laterality/ handedness handicap the learner for life? .

We should not be oblivious to the fact that we live in a right side biased world. Many of the things we must manipulateare placed conveniently or operate easily for the right handedmajority, e.g., scissors, door-locks, cooker controls, baths, and sinks. Perhaps, more surprisingly, left handers are reported to have “decreased evolutionary fitness” resulting inthem experiencing puberty at a later age, being smaller as adults, of lower weight, having fewer children, earning less, having a less lucrative life style, and living shorter lives than right handers.

Life span studies have shown that the percentage of left handers in the population diminishes steadily with age so thatproportionately, they are significantly under-represented in the oldest age groups. Two reasons have been suggested, (i) that left handers have a different immune system and are more susceptible to certain types of illnesses and consequently, have reduced longevity and (ii) because of adverse environmental factors, they have increased accident susceptibility.

Dilution of the genetic determination of handedness

It has always been thought that handedness is genetically influenced, but the evidence in the literature suggests thatthere are other factors which impact upon, and reduce this genetic influence. Porac (1976) in a three year study of 459 Canadian families, was unable to show a direct linkage of lefthandedness between parents and child, or between identical

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twins. The results quoted were similar to the findings of 11 earlier studies carried out between 1913 and 1982.

Porac reported that if neither parent was left handed, or only the father was left handed, there was only one chance in 10 that the child would be left handed. If only the mother wasleft handed, the chance of left handedness in the child increased to 2 in10. If both parents were left handed the chance of the child being left handed rose to 4 in 10. Porac pointed out that even in this genetically optimal condition, the chances of the child being right handed were much greater than being left handed.

Commenting upon this, Coren (1989) explained succinctly, “Handedness is controlled by a whole lot of pathways in the brain. If any of these pathways is mucked up in gestation, then handedness becomes a cosmic dice game. We believe that this accounts for about half of left handers.”

Marian Annett (1981), in her “right shift’ theory of handedness described a gene which facilitated the development of speech in the left hemisphere of the brain, and increased the probability of right handedness. She believed that most individuals had a right shift factor which disposed its carrier to be right handed. When this gene is absent the childmay be either right or left handed. She used her peg moving task described above, to test children whose parents were bothleft handed, and therefore did not have the right shift gene. Her results showed that 50% of these children were better withthe left hand, and 50% were better with the right hand. She concluded that hand preference for children without the right shift gene was determined by chance.

McManus (1985) suggested the existence of two forms of gene for brain lateralization, a dextral right form, and a ‘chance’form. People inheriting the chance form had a 50-50 chance of being right or left handed. The major difference between Annett and McManus lay in her concept of a continuum, while McManus’s view was of two discrete categories. There was muchsimilarity between the two theories, as both involved a singleoriginating gene, a random component, and classic Mendelian genetic inheritance.

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Later, Annett (1997)) further developed her theory to identify developmental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism as being linked to the effects of an agnostic right shift gene. The right shift + gene she described, was thought to be unstable, and mutated to a form which was agnostic for left versus right. This could result in the impairment of speech and language in both hemispheres, which was a possible cause of schizophrenia and autism. This finds broad support inthe work of Eichler and Polleux (2012) already discussed.

In recently published research carried out at Harvard MedicalSchool, Dr. Frank Duffy and Dr. Heidelise Als examined the EEG results of a group of 1000 children with and without autism. They reported that the autistic group showed a reduction in short range connectivity showing poor function oflocal brain networks especially in the left hemisphere regionsresponsible for language development. Duffy and Als’ findings are ground breaking because they open the way to very much earlier diagnosis of autism. Again, this work supports Annett’s very much earlier findings, of a link between geneticfailure to establish left hemisphere language development and the incidence of autism.

The Geschwind – Behan- Galaburda Theory of cerebral lateralisation.

The Geschwind-Behan-Galaburda theory of cerebral lateralization supports the view that genetics is only one factor determining handedness, and that environmental influences outside the genetic programme exert most control over the determination of individual cerebral specialism. Theyconsider that the effects of chemical variations in the environment provided by the uterus for the growing fetus, and in particular, the presence of strong concentrations of hormones, especially testosterone and/or estrogen, significantly restrict the development of the left cerebral hemisphere, particularly for boys, resulting in a shift to right hemisphere (left hand) development. Left handedness is therefore seen as a failure to become right handed.

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Geschwind, Behan and Galaburda further explain that the extreme levels of testosterone present in uterus, also limit the development of the thymus, so restricting production of lymphocytes and resulting in a different body immune system . Consequently, these changes in what might be considered to be the normal development of the cerebral hemispheres, lead to laterality uncertainties, left handedness, motor skills difficulties, phonological difficulties, language disorders, reading difficulties and a significantly increased incidence of immune disorders.

A University of Vienna research team, reported observations which supported Geschwind, Behan and Galaburda’s findings. Tran et al (2014) found that baby boys, born in the period October to February each year, showed a significantly increased incidence of left handedness, when compared with those born from March to September. It was reported that because the infants born from October to February were summerpregnancies, they experienced greater exposure to daylight andsunlight which increased the embryo’s exposure to testosteronein the womb. As Geschwind , Behan and Galaburda had predicted,this resulted in the observed significantly increased incidence of left handedness in these boys.

The Geschwind – Behan -Galaburda theory has stimulated much follow up testing and discussion resulting in the publication of further interesting and thought provoking statistics. Recent testing has shown that 90% of women are right handed while 86% of men are right handed. Left handedness is therefore, more frequent in men than women.

Prematurely born infants are five times more likely to be lefthanded than those born at full term. On average, left handers are smaller in stature than right handers. Left handers reported learning disorders nine times more frequently than right handers. Strong left handers were 11 times more likely to have reading difficulty than strong right handers. (See Geschwind and Behan 1982). Left handers experience thyroid and bowel disorders 2.7 times more frequently than right handers .Left handers were 3 times more likely to have schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or autism. The average age of death of left handers was 66 years, but for right handers was

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75 years, and a right handed baseball player is five times more likely to reach the age of 90 than a left hander. (See Coren and Halpern 1991)

Language / literacy failing children with significant fine motor skills difficulties attributable to a particular gene.

In the past ten years, a strong genetic influence on motor skills deficiencies underlying language / literacy failure hasbeen identified and studied in the KE family living in England. Over four recorded generations, half of the members of this family suffered from a severe motor related speech disorder linked to an inherited mutation of the FOXP2 gene.

There were two dimensions to the problems they experienced. The first was a motor control problem, which seriously limitedtheir ability to control their lower jaw to make speech soundsintelligibly. The second was a difficulty in understanding andusing the grammar and syntax of the language. It was also observed that they had difficulty writing down lists of words with the same starting letter. The mechanism leading to these difficulties resulted from the mutation of the FOXP2 gene which affected not only the structure of the FOXP2 protein , but also the activity of other proteins which functioned underits sphere of influence, leading to wide ranging consequencesin motor control and cognition. See Ding and Zhang (2012)

Subsequently, studies with mice have shown that FOXP2 is a vital regulator of the development of the heart, lungs, and especially, the brain. In an experiment, mice given two mutant copies of FOXP2 gene later showed brain abnormalities leading to motor problems, significantly reduced vocalization,and resulted in premature death.

The difficulties which are causal, and those which are a result of the FOXP2 mutation are still controversial in the literature, but it is clear that this gene mutation does lead to fine motor skills deficiencies in association with speech / language difficulties.

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Other genes with effects upon speech, language and literacyacquisition

Gibson and Gruen (2008) in their description of the human lexinome, (i.e., the known DNA fragments involved in speech, language and literacy related impairments) provide a very detailed summary of genes affecting speech, language and literacy disorders. In their discourse on the effects of the genes operating in the lexinome, they group together, dyslexia, specific language impairment, and ‘speech – languagedisorder’, as related genetically determined language learning difficulties. They report, “ studies have identified10 regions of different chromosomes, known as DYX loci, in genetic linkage with dyslexia, and two known as SLI loci, in genetic linkage with specific language impairment. Further genetic studies have identified four dyslexia genes within theDYX loci : DYX1C1 on 15q, KIAAO319 and DCDC2 on 6p22, and ROBO1 on 13q. FOXP2 on 7q has been implicated in the development of speech – language disorder. No genes for specific language impairment have yet been identified within the two SLI loci”.

Scerri et al (2011) reported a strong link between the incidence of the PCSK6 gene variant in dyslexic learners, leading to extremely highly developed right hand skill, and reading failure. They report that the PSCK6 variant interfereswith the action of nodal, a protein which in early embryonic development leads to cell differentiation and the eventual development of left – right functional asymmetry, and handedness. The principle author, Tony Monaco commented, “Thisstudy provides the first genetic link between handedness, brain asymmetry, and reading ability.”

Brandler et al (2013) carried out a genome-wide association study to identify any common gene variants that might correlate with the learner’s preferred hand. They reported that the most strongly associated, statistically significant variant with handedness was located in the gene PCSK6, which was particularly involved in the early establishment of left -right functional asymmetry in the growing embryo.

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Other genes such as DCDC2 and DYXICI have been reported to affect the embryonic developmental of cerebral architecture, in the migration of neurons to their later operating position in the cerebral cortex The SRGAP2B mutation enables much more rapid development of cerebral architecture in the fetus. The SRGAP2C mutation enables the development of dendrites witha significantly longer reach, thus facilitating more effective neural inter-connections. . The cAMP responsive element binding protein (CREB) , and zif268 have modulating and controlling effects upon the genes affecting memory processes.

There is therefore no one, single gene responsible for neurological architecture, neuronal development, motor skills,sensory skills, phonology, language and literacy. There are many genes which have relevant effects upon these linked aspects of learning. The cumulative effects of many genes mustbe considered. Nor is one set of genes, i.e., a single lexinome, (see Gibson and Gruen, 2008) discussed above,advantageous for learning all languages. It must be anticipated that there are differences in cultural genomes, which relate to and match the neurological differences observed in learners of different languages with different cultural linguistic semantic structures.

Nor are these cultural genomes stable over time. It must also be accepted that the evolving and changing world balance of transparent phonological languages, opaque phonological languages, logographic languages, and currently evolving pictographic languages, will also affect the human genetic disposition, determining the neurological structures and sensory motor skills competences required for successful cultural language processing. Each cultural genome must changeto match the changing sensory processing demands of the evolving cultural language.(see the “Cultural Language – Learners’ Sensory Motor Skills Integrity Hypothesis”, at page 13, above.)

A further variable must be stipulated. The cultural environment can significantly affect the actions of the cultural genome. Current genetic research suggests that the major developmental processes under consideration in this

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chapter, cerebral specialism, motor control, handedness, sensory skills, and working memory, result from the actions ofgroups of genes which may be switched on or off epigenetically, and are therefore, variable, depending upon the learner’s current cultural environment, and the pressing immediate environmental circumstances which impinge upon the learner’s development, or have impinged upon the development of his immediate ancestors.

The actions of genes in the processes of learning may also be interfered with, by biological organisms living in otherwise ‘healthy’ students. Yolken et al (2014) identified DNA sequences homologous to the virus ATCV-1 which had not previously been known to infect humans. They found that the presence of ATCV-1 was associated with a modest, but measurable decrease in their subjects’ cognitive functioning, particularly in the skills of visual processing and visuo-motor speed. Further experimentation was carried out using mice. Again, a relationship between the presence of ATCV-1 anddiminished cognitive functioning was also confirmed in this mouse model. Later investigation confirmed that exposure to ATCV-1 resulted in changes to the gene expression within the brain. The cognitive systems which were found to be limited bythis intervention included recognition memory, and sensory – motor skills.

This is a very new and recently developed area for investigating limitations in cognitive skills which have effects upon learning. It is likely that other viruses will beidentified, which show further limitations upon the clearly variable genetic processes of learning, and restricting the effects of the family genome.

Recent important developments in the science of genetics

Over the past twenty years the ‘gene-centrist’ view was widely accepted in genetics. Because DNA was found at the centre of all our cells, gene –centrists believed it represented the core of life. The gene- centrist point of view held that the gene , through the action of DNA and RNA,produced essential protein, which, with the protein contributions of the other genes in the person’s genome, went

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on, without deviation, to build the thinking, learning, performing environmentally successful individual.

Recent research has questioned the relevance and accuracy of this position. It is now apparent that genetic influences on the learner are not as ongoing and consistent as was once thought. Some genes can produce not one, but several proteins.Also the mechanisms for protein production by the gene do not operate as consistently as the gene-centrists thought. These can be turned on and off by epigenetic processes such as methylation in the womb, or major environmental triggers. The actions of the child’s genetic inheritance upon his development and learning are now regarded as operating in a much less rigid and deterministic way. Summing up current developments in genetics, Brian Appleyard in the Sunday Times, 17th. June, 2012, insisted, “the gene is not the last word, and may not even be the first. It is certainly not in complete control of anything.”

Anne Ferguson-Smith , Professor of Developmental Genetics at the University of Cambridge has recently (2012) explained that the environment ‘talks’ to the DNA, placing molecular flags which facilitate the operation of certain genes and block the operation of others. This results in epigenetic modifications to the effects of the genome, which she stresses, are normal processes.

Tim Spector (2012) reported on his findings from the UK Twins Register, which contains some 11,000 cases, and is acknowledged to be one of the foremost databases of its type in the world. In the literature, identical twin studies have frequently been used in genetic research because they share the same genome, therefore, it has been argued, similarities or differences they show can be taken as evidence of the influence of their genes.

From his database, Spector (2012), found much greater differences between monozygotic twins across a wide range of behaviours than had previously been anticipated, and he questioned how similar monozygotic twins actually are. While traditional genetics asserted that DNA provided the instructions to make RNA which uniformly, created proteins

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controlling all cell activity, Spector described epigenetic processes, such as methylation which can turn the protein producing processes of the genes on and off. This altered what got translated into cell activity, thus changing the effects of the original genome. He therefore argues that the effects of the genome may be changed, so that the twins may not, in fact, show genetically identical traits.

More significantly for the hypothesis put forward in this book, Spector records instances of one generation’s significant environmental experiences leading to acquired traits / characteristics, which were epigenetically replicated, and resulted in the same genetic effects generations later. It therefore seems that the frequently reiterated stricture in Exodus chapter 20, verse 5, repeated in Exodus chapter 34, verse 7 and again in Deuteronomy chapter 5 verse 9 “ visiting the sins (actions) of fathers upon the children and upon the grandchildren” makes acceptablegenetic and cognitive psychological sense.

Spector (2012), makes four clear pronouncements of considerable significance about the actions of our genes:-

(i) Genes are not the essence of homo sapiens. He commented, “We have shown how genes, though still important, have lost their privileged and prominent status, particularly as the distinction between nature and nurture disappears.”

(ii) It is possible to change our genetic inheritance. Eventhough the individual’s genome has been identified, predictable determination occurs only in the case of rare diseases, and the severity and timing of the events of the disease are subject to variation due to epigenetic effects.

(iii) A single environmental event can plant a lifelong memory. We now know that this memory can occur by epigenetic influences on our genes, which replicate, and reproduce daughter cells with the same epigenetic messages. The most sensitive and influential times for the operation of these epigenetic signals are during development in the fetus before birth, or in the infantsoon after birth. But Spector stressed that such epigenetic events could occur at any time, and persist

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long after the triggering environmental event, as had been shown previously in studies of Romanian orphans and abuse victims.

(iv) Environmental factors leading to acquired traits can lead to later genetic effects replicating these traitsin subsequent generations. This is the essence of the “inheritance of acquired characteristics” as proposed by Lamarck (1809), and accepted as possible by Darwin, but rejected and sometimes ridiculed by most biologists and psychologists over the past 200 years.

In September, 2012, the Encode Project simultaneously published 30 very important papers on genetics, in journals such as Nature, Science and Cell. In an overview paper, the Encode consortium substantially changed the previously held perspective on the relative significance of substantial parts of our DNA. The important actions of the 20,000+ known genes which make up some 2% of our DNA have been linked to the verylarge (80%+) section previously described as “junk” or “dark matter”. The biochemical functions of this very large section of DNA have now been identified, and found to be in controlling the expression level of genes. The “dark matter” facilitates the working of the active protein producing section of DNA , acting as regulatory switches for controllingthe growth of human development.

Ines Barroso, one of the authors, explained, “Most of these stretches of DNA harbour regions that bend proteins and RNA molecules, bringing these into positions from which they cooperate with each other to regulate the function and level of expression of protein coding genes.” Another author, Ewan Birney commenting on the report that this section of DNA contained more than 4,000,000 regulatory switches that controlthe actions of the genes, insisted, “ We see way more regulatory elements than I was expecting. There are more switches than you could ever believe.”

Anne Ferguson-Smith explained the actions of these switches incontrolling the operation of the genes. “They have important implications for the growth and development of fetuses during pregnancy. These are the kinds of elements which make tissues

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and organs grow properly, at the right time and place, and containing the right cells.”

Discussing the described epigenetic effects, the Encode researchers have argued that it makes evolutionary sense for our bodies to note and react to environmental conditions, and send genetic signals about the environment across the generations. It is apparent from this most recent work on the actions and controls of genes that the inter-relationship between heredity and the environment is much more direct and much less complex and circular than had previously been thought. Indeed Spector (2012) quoting Fox Keller (2010) argues that the distinction between nature and nurture is disappearing.

Supporting this position, Ridley (2003) argued that modern genomics has established that the traditional nature – nurture debate is now meaningless. He asserts: “The discoveryof how genes actually influence human behavior and how human behavior influences genes is about to recast the debate entirely. No longer is it ‘nature versus nurture’, but ‘naturevia nurture’. Genes are designed to take their cues from nurture. In other words what matters for development is not somuch what genes an organism, or learner has, but how and when these genes are expressed, and to be expressed they need to beactivated by environmental stimuli.”

Cultural environment in which the learner learns, determines the operation of the genes available to that learner, and his/her sensory motor skills profile.

This view of the importance of the cultural environment in determining the expression of the operating genes for members of that culture, as described by Ridley above, supports the implications of hypothesis 1; that there is an evolutionary accord between (i) the basic neurological organization which determines the comparative strengths of the motor, visual, andphonological / verbal sensory skills required by group membersfor successful life in that culture. (ii) the genetically determined neurologically based sensory skills shown by the greater majority of that populace, and available to support successful language learning in the derivation and expression

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of meaning from the language structure used in that culture; and (iii) the particular sensory processing demands of that cultural language structure.

Linked to the research discussed in this paper, the second hypothesis put forward for consideration , is that the particularly language depriving environmental circumstances inthe learner’s background which led to language disadvantage, (see the glossary for a definition of this term) switched off the genes leading “normally” to left hemisphere specialism, right handedness, and effective language and literacy skills. This acquired genetic effect had initial benefits but led to similar genetically determined right hemisphere specialism in subsequent generations of the affected families,with consequent handedness differences, motor skills uncertainties, and language and literacy failure, i.e., dyslexia in succeeding generations, acquired genetically from severe environmental language disadvantage experienced inearlier generations of the family.

Teachers must respond to these challenging circumstances

In seeking to identify the genetic links unifying what were previously considered to be separate and distinct sub-groups of the language and literacy failing population, our aim must be to simplify access to the appropriate special teaching programmes required by all these students.

It is stressed that this must not be regarded as an entirely negative situation for teachers or their language and literacyfailing students. The cognitive skills development programmesand multi-sensory literacy training programmes which should beimplemented to deal positively and effectively with these difficulties are described much more fully in Chasty (2015). It should not be forgotten that the neurological specialism which leads to different laterality and results in reading failure, also brings with it a range of other beneficial skills in visual, spatial and practical thinking, which are increasingly valued and required in the digital technology of the working world of the 21st. century.

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The real challenge for both teachers and reading failing students is, while still safe-guarding the student’s visual and spatial abilities, to build the necessary sensory motor, working memory, learning, verbal expression, literacy and thinking skills using structured multi-sensory methods which are understood by both learner and teacher.

This skills development process which begins with the teacher,is eventually transferred to the learner, giving him/ her metacognitive control over the development of the processes oflearning, before significant literacy failure results in alienation and disaffection with formal ‘in-school’ learning sets in. In this way, the challenge of “teaching the child theway he/she learns” will be met (see Chasty 1990 and 2015).

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GLOSSARY

AKS (Auditory – Kinesthetic – Semantic) PHONOLOGICAL / LINGUISTIC STRUCTURE In learning to speak, infants must link the sounds they hear

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in their home language (A), with the motor movement pattern required to produce and say these sounds (K), and with their implicit meaning (S), to create a multi-modal phonological - linguistic schema. When this has been established and is fully functioning, it gives the infant learner instantaneous access to all six of the required inter-sensorydimensions essential for effective speech. Thisfacilitates gaining access to meaning from thesounds spoken by others and expressing meaning through sounds spoken by the learner to others.This process starts in the language phonological structure, but very quickly must evolve into , and encapsulate the linguistic- semantic structure of the familial language. Mastery of this process leading to successful speech, depends upon the application of genetically determined, neurologically based, early sensory learning skills, which may be much less effective, or missing in children from families with a history of illiteracy. Consequently, their development of early phoneme recognition, phonological awareness, and speech skills is often impaired, with very significant effects upon their acquisition of literacy, and subsequent directions followed in their later cognitive development. The speech-language learning process operates from the formation of the fetus in the womb, and this process is accelerated after birth. Newly born infants are surrounded by a wide variety of sounds from which speech must be isolated and prioritized. Even at that very early stage in infant development, genetically determined differences are evident in the quality of their responses to speech sounds. (See Gluttorm et al, 2006, also, Gomez et al, 2014). When the young child is learning to speak, he/she must select, focus upon, and listen to the available speech sounds, so that these

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basic phonological- linguistic elements can be recognized, stored, retrieved, organized, and manipulated in rudimentary phonological memory. The quality and integrity of this earlylearning, which under-pins the development of phonological awareness and speech, is determined by the infant’s genetically shaped neurological architecture and early neuronal connections. The very strong brain organizational base to this learning process has been confirmed by Yeatman et al (2011). They showed that strong left hemisphere lateralasymmetry in the development of the learner’s arcuate fasciculus was essential for successfulauditory – kinesthetic, “sound heard – motor movement to say” neural connections. Lopez-Baroso et al (2013) also confirmed the strong relationship between the structural developmentof the left arcuate fasciculus, and the child’sability to reproduce and say the sound pattern of a phoneme, syllable, or word. They stressed the importance of the structural development ofthe left arcuate in facilitating the child’s ability to learn new words successfully. Difficulties shown by the learner in phonological awareness are not therefore, the primary cause of later speech and literacy difficulties, but are themselves, an early effect of the genetically determined neurological differences underlying illiteracy.Having learned to isolate and recognize speech sounds, the learner must then integrate developing motor memory and movement skills to move muscles controlling the jaw, tongue, lips and teeth to make these sounds, with increasingaccuracy, and link his / her individual understanding of their meaning to the sound andmotor movement patterns developed, and storedin their growing working memory system. With the help of parents, carers, and teachers, the learner refines these skills to build the essential sensory links between speech sounds,

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the motor movement pattern to say them , and the evolving meaning conveyed. This Auditory – Kinesthetic – Semantic (AKS) framework for speech enables the learner to listen to speech , recognize and manipulate the sounds heard, build understanding of the phonology, grammar, semantics and pragmatics inherent in the structure of the familial language code, to derive meaning from the spoken words, and inresponse, express ideas through moving muscles to make sounds in spoken words, which within this linguistic code, convey the learner’s understanding and meaning to listeners. Across the world, languages do not provide for their learners, equally viable systems for speaking and thinking. The varying open / transparent, simple / complex phonological / linguistic structures of world languages, precipitate variations in the ease or difficulty of the acquisition and use of these linguistic structures for the further development, understanding, and application of verbally mediated curriculum skills and knowledge. A language which has a simple direct phonologicalstructure will facilitate early and easy acquisition by its learners of the AKS linkages leading to effective speech skills, which will facilitate more effective development and expression of verbally mediated meaning for thinking. Some languages therefore, may be more efficient than others for communicating through speech, thinking, and acquiring and expressing culturally important, verbally mediated skills and ideas. This AKS framework , therefore, has a very significant role in the child’s cognitive development which goes way beyond speech. It is particularly important in working memory development as a key procedure in representingincoming information for thinking and learning,preparing it for storage in long term memory, and managing the appropriate retrieval and

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expression of that meaning to others. With full and complete integration of the auditory –verbal, kinesthetic and semantic components of speech, which enables these skills to be more easily controlled and operated at a level of automaticity, the memory loading of the contained three dimensional sensory informationand skills, is compacted and minimized so thatspeech processing is more economically managed in working memory. This vital strategy for reduction of the loading upon embryonic working memory, posed by information processingand simultaneous skills management, is the essential foundation to all the child’s later learning in the phonology, speech, literacy, and verbal thinking hierarchical skills continuum. This important process has been referred to in Chasty (2015) as operational subsidiarity. Clearly, in acquiring the AKS structure, the child is not just learning to speak, he / she is also learning to remember, and also, most significantly, learning to learn. In teaching the learner the way he / shelearns, it is important that early initiatives in developing speech and literacy should be directed towards facilitating improvement in this seminal aspect of cognitive development.

DICHOTIC LISTENING TEST This test process requires the simultaneous presentation of two different, conflicting stimuli to the subject, through each ear, using stereo earphones. The aim is todocument how this information is processed in the brain, so determining the subject’s currentbrain hemispheric specialism for language processing. This procedure was cheap, effectiveand having been validated by using the Wada intra-carotid artery test, (ISAP), was shown to be reliable. Dichotic listening testing brought no risk of injury or harm to the participating subjects. With the advent of brain scanning techniques, mapping of brain

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function and the neuronal connections underlying neurological skills development became much more refined, but much more expensive, exclusive, and only available to thetechnologically affluent section of the research population. Dichotic listening procedures were overtaken by these technological advances, and became redundant. However, this does not make dichotic listening testing inaccurate or irrelevant in simple classroom based educational research. But experimental programme costs increased considerably by using this more advanced scanner based technology, and because of the need for access to the technologically advancedfacilities of a hospital, became the preserve of a very much more limited, but highly specialized few .

EPIGENETICS is the study of the layer of chemical switches and signals that activate, stimulate, limit or shut down the actions of our genes, in one generation, without significantly altering the underlying familial genetic code.In 2012, published research in genetics has shown that major environmental factors may interact with the learner’s DNA, placing “molecular markers” which determine which genesare switched on and which are switched off, thus determining key aspects of the individual’s learning and behaviour. In this paper we are particularly interested in how epigenetics affect the actions of genes determining basic neurological architecture, inright / left hemisphere development leading to cerebral dominance, neuronal connections, handedness, motor skills development, perceptual development, and working memory development, leading to the pattern of sensory abilities and deficiencies which contribute to the different learning style which results in language and literacy failure.

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The hypothesis is advanced that significant coercive environmental effects, making strong demands for particular skills clusters valued in that sub-culture, may result in acquired epigenetic changes. These affect the child’s early neurological specialism, and subsequent sensory skills development to produce the motor, visuo-spatial and practical skills required at that time, in that environment. Butthis also has the concomitant secondary effect of causing difficulties in the acquisition and management of language, literacy and verbally mediated thinking. This effect is observed, notjust in the current generation, but across subsequent generations of that family, resulting in ongoing illiteracy or “dyslexia” which is becoming an increasingly serious worldproblem..

GENOME The genome is the complete set of genes and non-coding sequences of DNA /RNA representing the hereditary information required to reproduce the organism. Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) is the chemical which stores genetic information in our cells. Shaped like a double helix, DNA passes down from one generation to the next. RNA, i.e., ribonucleic acid is a molecule used to make proteins in the body. A gene is a stretch of DNA that tells a cell how to make specific proteins or RNA molecules. Linked to the definition of dyslexia given above as a “genetically determined learning style”, this book focusses upon how, within the learner’s environment, the operation of the human genome particularly affects language and literacy development and usage. The human genome is very complex, and has been likened toa lengthy set of instructions stored in a book of 23 chapters, each containing 48 – 250 million unspaced letters, reduced to the size of a pinpoint and fitting into each human cell

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nucleus. Genes are the portions of a person’s DNA carrying the code responsible for building the individual in his unique and specific way. Genes carry the code for traits, which are passed from parent to child, from generation togeneration. While generally the passage of genes from parent to offspring is reliable, very occasionally, the process can be less thantotally accurate. In such circumstances, molecular mechanisms duplicate, reshuffle, and alter genes in a way that results in genetic variation. The genome, therefore, varies over time. The variations / changes are called mutations, which may be helpful, harmful, or make no difference at all to the individual. The resulting variation is the essence of evolution, which is not a random process. The individual’s survival and reproductive success is directly related to the ways in which his inherited traits function in, and interact withhis local environment. The individual will onlysurvive and reproduce, if his genes lead to traits which are well adapted to the particulardemands of his local environment. Therefore, genes and the environment interact, communicating backwards and forwards to create the successful, language competent, literate individual, or in some special environmental circumstances, the non-right hand dominant, language and literacy impaired , but visuo-spatially skilled individual, as required by that society. But there is no single specific gene for language / literacy competence. The effects of genes upon language / literacy acquisition are much more diffuse, impacting upon (i) the development of the cerebral architecture and (ii) the establishment of neural circuitry and neuronal connections necessary for language / literacy learning .Genes such as PCSK6, DCDC2 and DYXICI are associated with the embryonic development of cerebral architecture, in the

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migration of neurons to their later operating position in the outer cortex. Others such as SRGAP2C and ROBOI are involved in the establishment of axions , and neuronal development facilitating the effective transmission of language information. The FOXP2gene has effects upon the motor development necessary for speech. Other genes such as NR4A , CREB and zif268 have effects upon memory and learning necessary to support literacy. There are therefore a considerable number of genes which have positive or negativeeffects upon aspects of early auditory, visualand motor learning in infants, and linking these into the AKS structure necessary to support language and literacy. However, the actions of these genes upon language / literacy development are not consistent. In September 2012, the Encode Project published simultaneously, 30 papers describing the effects of what had previously been referred to as “dark matter” or “junk DNA”which has now been identified as controlling how DNA works, and acting as regulatory switches controlling the course of human development. Environmental influences, workingthrough these DNA switches, can result in immediate epigenetic modifications to the actions of genes. Language / literacy failure therefore, results from both environmental limitations and from genetically determined traits, and these may be more closely inter-related than was previously thought. Is genetically determined language /literacy failure qualitatively different from environmentally determined language /literacy failure? Do the causative negative environmental effects lead to acquired neurological characteristics which later transfer epigenetically into the operation of the genes? Are these traits inherited later by subsequent generations resulting in ongoing

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genetically determined language / literacy failure? These important genetic factors underlying language and literacy failure whichhave very significant implications for the planning and implementation of appropriate educational treatments will be considered in this book (see Chasty 2015).

INHERITANCE OF ACQUIRED CHARACTERISTICS. Lamarck (1809) is the originator of the theory of “the inheritance of environmentally acquired characteristics” which pre-dates Darwinism, andhas been called “soft inheritance” or Lamarckism. Lamarck said, “all that nature hascaused individuals to gain or lose by the influence of the circumstances to which their race has been exposed for a long time, and consequently, by the influence of a predominantuse or disuse of an organ or part , is conserved through generations in the new individuals descending from them, provided thatthese acquired changes are common to the two sexes or to those who have produced these new individuals.”…. and later Lamarck (1835), “Everything which has been acquired, outlined, or changed in the organization of the individuals in the course of their life is preserved through reproduction and is transmitted to the new individuals which springfrom those who have undergone these changes.” Darwin, the much more famous and well known author of “Origin of Species” supported these views. Much later, Paul Kammerer, an Austrian biologist working at the University of Vienna after the first World War, was particularly interested in Lamarkian ‘heritability of acquired characteristics’, and in the 1920s carried out a series of experiments varying theenvironmental conditions under which amphibianslived and bred, and noted the very significanteffects these variations had upon the subsequent development of succeeding

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generations of these creatures. By varying water depth and temperatures, Kammerer claimedto have succeeded in making midwife toads breedin water, and reported that over several generations they developed black nuptial pads on their feet, similar to those recorded in their prehistoric ancestors which had originally lived and bred in the different environmental conditions he had replicated. It was Kammerer’s view that it was the environmental conditions which determined the organism’s or individual’s genetic development.Kammerer embarked on a lecture tour to Cambridge, where a group of eminent zoologists examined his specimen toad and accepted its authenticity. Later, claims were made by Noble (1926) that the black ‘nuptial pads’ had been crudely fabricated by injecting indian ink intothe specimen. Sadly, some 6 weeks later, Kammerer who was seriously depressive and in financial difficulties, committed suicide. Establishment biology fell into the “post hoc propter ergo hoc” fallacy of reasoning, and interpreted this unfortunate sequence of eventsas a plea of guilty to professional malpractice. As a consequence, Lamarkian heritability of environmentally acquired characteristics vanished from acceptable science. However, Koestler (1971) questioned whether Kammerer’s work at the University of Vienna, which studied environmental effects indetermining the genetic characteristics of organisms, and advanced genetic theories linkedto socialism, and so, very much at odds with the “master race” genetics linked to fascism, had been deliberately tampered with by a Nazi sympathizer who sought to discredit him. Koestler’s coherent arguments in Kammerer’s favour raised once again the questions posed byhis work. Surprisingly, since 1926, no biologist or zoologist had sought to replicate Kammerer’s experiments, an action which could

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have resolved the issues in question. Much morerecently, Vargas (2009) has asserted that the heritability of environmentally acquired traitsas propounded by Kammerer could be genuine, andexplained by the developing science of epigenetics. He suggested that Kammerer could be the true discoverer of non-Mendelian epigenetic inheritance. This view is now strongly supported by research in genetic sciences published in 2012. For this paper, thekey issue is whether right hemisphere specialist neurological architecture and sensory motor learning characteristics derived from challenging environmental or “work” circumstances experienced by previous generations of a family, are epigenetically carried forward into the neurological structure, language usage, and learning profileof subsequent generations of that family, leading to ongoing visual and motor skills preferences resulting in inherited literacy failure i.e. “dyslexia” derived from earlier language disadvantage, as defined below.

LANGUAGE DISADVANTAGE results from living, learning, and working in, and so, accommodating to a local environment which makes strong, high prestige demands for skilled right hemisphere dominant,visuo-spatial processing, associated with a degree of ambidexterity or left handedness, within a local, less ‘meaning – explicit’, language semantic structure. This fails to provide the child with the operating genes, neurological organization, sensory motor learning skills, language experiences, and adult mediation necessary to facilitate the development of left hemisphere specialism, and subsequent appreciation of the inter-relationship of the sounds, phonology, and linguistic structure of the ‘establishment’ language. This leads to ensuing weaknesses in the development of phonological short term

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memory, phoneme recognition, phonology, vocabulary, syntax and semantic understanding, of the cultural language. This gives rise to difficulties in establishing the AKS sensory linkages required for effective speech and later, verbally mediated thinking. This results in working memory deficiencies, and inevitably, later difficulties in acquiring andapplying at the required level of automaticity the VAKS sensory motor linkages required for reading, leading to literacy difficulties, and subsequent limitations in verbally mediated thinking.

LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY is the study of the relationshipbetween the grammatical / semantic structure ofa language, and the cognitive development and thinking processes of its speaker / user population. This area of scientific study investigates how what is considered logical andappropriate in any language, develops out of what is considered to be grammatically correct.Linguistic relativity asserts that both the form of thinking giving rise to “western logic”and modern science, developed out of the perspective of the universe, derived from the commonalities of the structural grammars of European languages. Generally, in the development of human thought, linguistic relativity is acknowledged to be a very controversial area of study. In this paper, two related aspects of this field are relevant and important. (1) Across different world languages; the viability of the phonological/ syntactic/grammatical / semantic structure of auser’s language, for learning and manipulating particular educationally essential curriculum based concepts is reflected in the speed of acquisition and integrity of application of these concepts.

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(2) in a single language, variations in students’ early sensory motor skills, under-pinning limitations in phonological awareness, which lead to speech and literacy difficulties also limit the development of grammatical, syntactic and semantic structures in the user’s language, so inhibiting the development,application and control of verbally mediated thinking. (See Bernstein 1968, and Chasty ,1973) The different, less educationally viable form of thinking observedin such literacy failing students, who lack phonological, morphological, syntactic , and semantic competences in their familial vernacular version of the cultural language, must be the start point for the parallel development of more educationally appropriate language and sensory motor development necessary in the effective treatment of illiteracy.

PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS is the learner’s ability to tune into, remember and manipulate the sound system of the language independently of its meaning. In language learning, it is a further developmental step above hearing, auditory acuity, recognizing phonemes, and being able tosay sounds. Sound focusing, storage, recall and management systems are an essential part ofphonological awareness. There is some evidence that this is a genetically determined skill (see Guttorm et al , 2006).

VAKS There are three major senses used in learning, visual, through the eyes, auditory through the ears, kinesthetic through touch- feeling- motor movement, and these three sensory aspects should be linked by teacher, and later by the learner to give direct access to the semantic (meaning) aspects of the stimulus. In maximizing the learner’s skill in recognising and recalling the stimulus, and

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minimizing its loading upon working memory, it is important to use simultaneously, all four of these VAKS modalities. In learning to read, the stimulus, (letter, syllable, or word) should be presented visually, auditorally, kinesthetically, and the implicit semantic-meaning element should be stressed. Teaching based upon these principles is usually referredto as multi-sensory or multi-modal. This multisensory teaching procedure should be transferred into the students cognitive development to facilitate more effective working memory skills.

WORKING MEMORY refers to a genetically determined memory system used for the temporary storage, manipulation and retrieval of information across the five sensory modalities, auditory, visual, motor, gustatory and olfactory. It alsodevelops and operates a control system for morecomplex multi-sensory cognitive activities suchas reading, which requires simultaneous use ofboth storage and processing capability, when printed graphemes have to be identified, recognized, their inherent sounds attached and said, and the implicit meaning extracted and stored for later use. Individual working memorycapability is very variable and language andliteracy failing children have been shown to experience significant working memory difficulties. In any cognitive activity, the imposition for them, of excessive simultaneous storage or processing demands (such as when reading), can lead to a serious loss of information and / or a catastrophic failure in the activity being carried out. Working memory difficulties are therefore, a major cause of language/literacy failure. But working memory is a very developable skill. Teachers should note that working memory difficulties may not

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be addressed by specialist reading teaching, even when using approved remedial reading programmes, and in such literacy teaching, they must pay particular attention to the simultaneous transference of multi-sensory information processing developed initially for literacy learning, into widened and improved sensory perception, more effective cognitive skills, and working memory development.

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