Mirror Writing and the Development of Chinese Written Language

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This chapter studies the phenomenon of mirror writing among different groups of Chinese subjects, including preschool children, school children, normal adults, and patients with cerebral vascular diseases. The Chinese language is very useful in examining mirror writing. Individual Chinese characters are often made up of components (radicals) that are placed in different locations relative to each other within the generally square space occupied by a character. Mirror writing occurs more often when subjects write with their left hands. When learning to write, apart from establishing motor schemas in the hemisphere contralateral to the hand used, it is hypothesized that the corresponding schemas that are mirror images are established in the hemisphere. In normal development of a written language, it is possible that graphic motor schemas in the left cerebral hemisphere and mirror writing motor schemas in the right cerebral hemisphere are established. In normal right-handed adults, graphic motor schemas are dominant over the mirror writing motor schemas so that in writing with the left hand, the mirror writing motor schemas are integrated instantaneously by the visual image of corresponding Chinese characters. In children, the graphic motor schemas and mirror writing motor schemas in both cerebral hemispheres are not strongly established; thus, the integration of the visual image is weak.