Right-left Orientation: Development of Correct Use of Right and Left Terms

Right-left orientation includes discrimination and recognition as well as identification, the former two differentiating between symmetrical cues and the latter using the words right and left. In the present experiment involving 406 children, the evolution of the knowledge and use of the concepts of right and left were assessed. Discrimination and recognition on all tasks used in this study are mastered much earlier than verbal identification, and, at even 11 years of age, half of the subjects of the present study still did not apply the words right and left properly onto other persons in the milieu. Children use the words right and left correctly first on their own bodies as early as seven years of age, then on people facing away, and finally on people facing them around eight to nine years of age. This transition most probably reflects the slow evolution of cognitive processes which determine the way the child will use internal or external frameworks as well as the passage from egocentrism to "alteregocentrism" with ability to consider other viewpoints than one's own.