'If a lefty writes with his right hand it's bad, because we're changing the hand but not the leading eye or the leading foot. ' So a child who has had his hand changed is more prone to distraction; he absorbs information more poorly. As a result, he can become more irritable.
Most children have a preference for using one hand or the other by the age of about 18 months, and are definitely right or left-handed by about the age of three. If your child is naturally left-handed, don't try to force them into using their right hand.
Side Effects of Forceful Conversion of Hand Preference in Child. Studies have found that this forceful conversion can cause multiple problems in the developing left-handed child, including learning disorders dyslexia stuttering another speech disorders.
Despite our genetic predispositions, however, many people do change handedness. Mostly, they are forced to switch as a result of injury, Porac says. She has seen many cases, mostly long-time righties who had to go left. "If they're forced to, they can switch a lot of their behaviors," she says.
Overall, individuals with ADHD had a 27.3 percent chance of being either left-handed or mixed-handed compared to 18.1 percent in the general population. So the results suggest that the effects are smaller than for the autism spectrum, but generally go in the same direction.
The question of whether left-handedness could be inherited was answered in 2007 when scientist Clyde Francks announced the isolation of a gene—called LRRTM1—that contributes to left-handedness. Francks' research suggests the gene is inherited on the father's side.
The possible primary consequences of converting handedness are as follows: memory disorders (especially in the recall of learned material) disturbances in concentration (being easily tired) legasthenic problems or dyslexia (i.e. problems in reading and writing)
Some children experience them from early stages of literacy education, while others occur at a later stage while reading texts. In comparison to right-handed people, left-handed people are 2.5-3 times more likely to have difficulty in mastering written speech -- in both writing and reading.
Although hand preference can be learnt, the genetic influence is surprisingly consistent. If two parents are right-handed, their offspring has a 10% chance of being left-handed.
Handwriting is considered the most challenging daily activity for left-handed children to perform, I can confirm. My baseline orientation (writing on the line) and spatial awareness was a struggle in grade school.
Parents and guardians are able to adjust a child's preference from left to right, but should do so while they are between the ages of 1-3 years old. Their preference can be ascertained by observing which hand they primarily use to pick up toys or hold their spoon when eating.
In fact, one of the more unusual hypotheses to explain the rarity of left-handedness is that a genetic mutation in our distant past caused the language centres of the human brain to shift to the left hemisphere, effectively causing right-handedness to dominate, Alasdair Wilkins explains for io9 back in 2011.
A hand preference usually starts to develop between the ages of 2 to 4, however it is common at this stage for children to swap hands. Between the ages of 4 to 6 years a clear hand preference is usually established. ◗ If your child does not use one hand as his preferred hand, do not choose or force him to use one hand.
Although teaching people to become ambidextrous has been popular for centuries, this practice does not appear to improve brain function, and it may even harm our neural development. Calls for ambidexterity were especially prominent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
We also find robust evidence that left-handed (and mixed-handed) children perform significantly worse in nearly all measures of development than right-handed children, with the relative disadvantage being larger for boys than girls.
This is often associated with enhanced intuition, emotion, imagination and creativity. Left-handed people are also believed to be better at thinking outside the box and problem-solving, which could be a big advantage as your child approaches school age.
Left-handed people are said to be good at complex reasoning, resulting in a high number of lefty Noble Prize winners, writers, artists, musicians, architects and mathematicians. According to research published in the American Journal of Psychology, lefties appear to be better at divergent thinking.
How Hand Dominance Develops. Research has shown that left-handedness is more common among individuals with certain cognitive disorders, such as autism,3 ADHD,4 and developmental coordination disorder (DCD).
It seems that brain development in the movement control areas can be affected by an early experience of writing hand conversion. However, the researchers did not find a relationship between these brain differences and speech, language or other learning difficulties among converted left-handers.
Babe Ruth. The Babe is probably the most famous left-handed slugger of all-time.
Researchers have not yet found a genetic link between dyslexia and handedness and individuals with dyslexia, a learning difficulty that affects reading, writing and spelling abilities, are split 50:50 between right and left-handedness.
Left-handedness occurs in about 8% of the human population. It runs in families and an adoption study suggests a genetic rather than an environmental origin; however, monozygotic twins show substantial discordance.