In conclusion, our results show that left-handed individuals have a greater degree of ambidexterity than their right-handed counterparts.
People who have no dominant hand, and can use both hands with equal skill, are about 1 in 100, though many people who are left-handed can use their non-dominant hand nearly as well as their dominant one.
Roughly 90% of people have a preference for using the right hand for complex manual tasks1–3. A minority of roughly 10% prefer to use the left hand, and a smaller group of roughly 1% has no clear preference, the so-called 'ambidextrous' people.
Whether you're writing, brushing your teeth, or throwing a ball, you can do it just as well with either hand. While many left-handed people also use their right hands pretty well, very few people are truly ambidextrous. Only about one percent of people can do things equally well with either hand.
If two parents are right-handed, their offspring has a 10% chance of being left-handed. However, if one or both parents are left-handed, the chance of their child being left-handed becomes higher at 18 to 22% and 27%, respectively.
A single gene might be passed from parents to children to influence which hand a child favours. If a particular version of this gene is inherited, the child may be more likely to be left-handed, depending on reinforcement and other environmental influences.
In their analysis of 144 handedness and brain laterality studies—accounting for a total of nearly 1.8 million individuals—University of Oxford psychologists Marietta Papadatou-Pastou, PhD, and Maryanne Martin, PhD, found that males are about 2 percent more likely to be left-handed than females.
The study found that left-handers and right-handers had similar IQ scores, but people who identify as ambidextrous had slightly lower scores, especially in arithmetic, memory and reasoning.
A study found that ambidextrous children (those that are both left- and right-handed) are more likely to develop ADHD symptoms later in life, compared to their left-handed and right-handed peers.
Ambidextrous kids are more likely to suffer from language and learning problems, such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), than their right- or left- handed peers.
In conclusion, our results show that left-handed individuals have a greater degree of ambidexterity than their right-handed counterparts.
Some people can write with both hands. Famous examples include Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, Nikola Tesla, James A. Garfield, and Leonardo da Vinci.
The idea that becoming ambidextrous boosts brain function has existed for over a century. Moreover, it is also claimed that if you harness this 'power' you can improve your academic performance, decision making skills and grasp difficult concepts quickly.
They are usually good at sports when in a one-on-one face-off. In games like baseball, boxing, fencing and tennis, left-handers often have an edge over their right-handed opponents who are used to playing with right-handed players mostly. Left-handers have typing advantages.
Around 48% of gifted children are ambidextrous at some stage of their development. Take a look at some of the other criteria for gifted kids and if you think your child is, then it is definitely worth getting an IQ test done as gifted children do need additional stimulation in order for them to develop optimally.
Here, we show that the frequency of left-handers is strongly and positively correlated with the rate of homicides across traditional societies. It ranges from 3% in the most pacifistic societies, to 27% in the most violent and warlike.
Recent evidence even associated being ambidextrous from birth with developmental problems, including reading disability and stuttering. A study of 11-year-olds in England showed that those who are naturally ambidextrous are slightly more prone to academic difficulties than either left- or right-handers.
But a tiny minority – fewer than one in 100 – are ambidextrous. This handedness is inborn and at least partly controlled by genetics. It is also seen in other animals, including some primate groups.
The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjectively preferred, is called the non-dominant hand. In a study from 1975 on 7,688 children in US grades 1-6, left handers comprised 9.6% of the sample, with 10.5% of male children and 8.7% of female children being left-handed.
But other research suggests that there are probably dozens of genes that play a role in determining whether we end up writing with our left hand or our right. On top of that, other studies have linked factors such as oestrogen levels and birth position to varying levels of left- and right-handedness.
A child who is truly ambidextrous will be equally as skilled at utilizing both sides of the body and it will look and feel natural to the child. Statistically, only 1% of the population is truly ambidextrous—it's really very rare, and it is more likely that your child is experiencing mixed dominance patterns.
However, post-hoc exploration of their and other sets of data has shown that there is an apparent tendency for left-handedness to be more prevalent in the period March-July than in the period August-February.
McManus which found that the Netherlands has one of the world's highest prevalences of left-handedness at 13.23 percent. The United States isn't far behind with a rate of 13.1 percent while neighboring Canada has 12.8 percent. Elsewhere, rates of left-handedness are far lower and China is a good example.