Abstract
The author has experienced that many cerebral palsied children write mirror writing and their handedness is difficult to be identified. The purpose of this article is to consider writing in the cerebral palsied from these two points of view. Each child was asked to write his name lengthwise in the Japanese cursive syllabary with the hand that he wrote everyday, and then equally with the other hand. Subjects were 104 cerebral palsied children, rangingin age from 5 years 1 month to 14 years 7 months old (mean; 8 years 6 months). Seventy two children were classified as spastic and 32 children as athetosis. Control subjects were 74 non-brain-damaged children in the same range of years (mean; 9 years 5 months). Results were as follows: 1. Mirror writing was found in the cerebral palsied more often than in the non-brain-damaged. It was not recognized in the athetotic, but in the spastic. 2. Those who wrote with left hand were more frequently found in the cerebral palsied than in the non-brain-damaged. 3. In many of the cerebral palsied, mirror relation was observed between the letters which were written with the prefered hand and those with the other hand, but in the non-brain-damaged, such relation was scarcelyfound (the cerebral palsied: 54.8%, the non-braindamaged: 3.7%). This tendency was recognized regardless of age and more in the spastic than in the athetotic (the spastic 73. 6% the athetotic: 12.5%). 4. There were no relation between IQ and to write the letters with mirror relation. 5. Examing the relation between causes of cerebral palsy and to write the letters with mirror relation, such writing, did not relate to asphxia of the newborn, blasensprung and ikterus gravis of the newborn but to shortness of fetal life (below 29 weeks) and small weight at birth (below 2000g ). The cerebral palsied who were born prematurely wrote much more letters with mirror relation than those who were born maturely. The results of this article suggest the relationship between, to write the letters with mirror relation and perceptual disorders, because spastic children with perceptual disorders wrote letters with mirror relation much more than athetotic and non-brain-da-maged children. Furthermore, considering that cerebral palsied children have some difficulties in establishment of handedness, and in relations between the handicapped hand and handedness, or eyedness and handedness, these difficulties maybe one of the causes of dysgraphia. It still remains to study relationships between cerebral dominance and to write the letters with mirror relation.
