 |
 |
Hi Gordon, You may want to consider having approximately equal numbers of left and right handed participants in both the ASD and control groups. This will ensure that any ASD vs. control differences can't easily be attributed to handedness issues, and would also let you examine effects of handedness when you analyze the data. Otherwise I think you run the risk (real, or in the minds of reviewers) of confounding handedness and diagnosis, which could cause problems with interpretation. Of course you can argue that handedness is not thought to be related to what you are interested in, but it would probably be better to just address it with data. My 2 cents! Hope it helps. Jonathan On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 10:31 AM, Waiter, Dr Gordon D. <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > We are about to start recruitment for a study of attention in Autism > Spectrum Disorder (ASD). A large percentage of our potential ASD > participants are left handed. I appreciate that trying to minimise variation > in our sample is desirable but we're not aware that attention is lateralised > or would be expected to be, so are there still reasons to limit our group to > right handers only, bearing in mind that our control group will be right > handed. > > Thanks in advance, > > Gordon > >