The specificity of cerebral lateralization in perception of emotional intonation of speech among children with special abilities

Abstract

Much attention has been recently given to examination of developmental peculiarities of cognitive processes of children and adolescents with special abilities. The goal lies in comparative study of the ontogenetic peculiarities of cerebral mechanisms underlying the processing of emotional information in children who are engaged in extracurricular musical and mathematical activities. The sampling included the children engaged in additional activities and the control group, and consisted of the three age groups: 7-10 year, 10-13 years, and 14-17 years. In the conducted experimental studies, the respondents had to identify the emotional intonation of speech in the given phrase. The study revealed the significant ontogenetic differences in perception of emotional prosody of speech between the control group and the children engaged in additional activities. In the group of children of 7-13 years, who are engaged in additional classes, the predominant activity of left hemisphere testifies to the specificity of inter-hemispheric connections in the perception of emotional information. The dependence of the effects of cerebral lateralization on age was analogous in the groups of children engaged in mathematical and musical activities; and differed from the results of the control group, which allows claiming that the interinfluence of mathematical and musical skills is to a certain extent explained by the peculiarities of developmental age of cerebral lateralization in childhood and adolescence.