HANDEDNESS AS MANIFESTED IN SCHOOL-CHILDREN FROM A REGION POLLUTED BYNEUROTOXINS

The study presents the results of the examination of handedness in 2 g roups of school children aged 9 to 10 years, living in Central Slovaki a, and differing only as to the region of birth and growing up. One re gion is highly polluted by industrial pollutants (such as As, Mn, Pb, Cd, NOx, SOx and vinylchloride): Here lives the ''Affected group'' (AG , n=83). The ''Control Group'' (CG, n=80) comes from the other region which is relatively non-contaminated. We measured lateral asymmetry of handedness with regard to the characteristics stability (tremor), spe ed (tapping), accuracy (dotting), and sensorimotor coordination (traci ng). Tile size of the lateral difference was expressed as a Laterality Score (LS = right minus left) for every child and task. It was found that children from the polluted region show significantly greater late ral differences, especially for tremor and tracing (no. of deviations) ; on the other hand, bilateral asymmetry was lower for the number of c orrect hits in the dotting task.