Abstract
Is there such a thing as right hemisphere literacy? There is a paradigm in neuropsychology that the brain processes enabling right-handed people to read are restricted to the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere, according to this view, while involved in non-reading-related processes, lacks the neurological competence required for such tasks as the recognition and understanding of written words. Most paradigms do not arise out of thin air but have their foundation in some kind of fact. Our present understanding on reading lateralization has its roots in the effects of brain injuries, for it is well established that while injuries to the left hemisphere affect reading, sometimes destroying the ability completely, this is rarely the case with the right hemisphere. If reading abilities existed in this hemisphere, why should those individuals with a damaged left hemisphere, but an intact right one, not use the latter to take over their impaired reading abilities? This lack of compensation has been taken to indicate that the left hemisphere is specialized for reading, while the right hemisphere is illiterate.
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Skoyles, J.R. (1988). Right Hemisphere Literacy in the Ancient World. In: de Kerckhove, D., Lumsden, C.J. (eds) The Alphabet and the Brain. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01093-8_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-01093-8_19
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