Left/right handed

[Lydwatt]

I was surprised that my dd's year 1 teachers felt that she was still undecided as it seemed to me that she does use now her left hand almost all the time. however, she has been undecided for a long time in the past, eg kicking footballs with her right.

I am aware that stats have shown lefties make up about 10% and I am also aware that the numbers of lefties have been increasing and i have put this down to a change in policy to stop forcing left-handed children to write with their right (so that all but the very left handed used to be counted as right-handers).

The point of all of this is that am curious as to what causes left/right-handed (is it genetic?). i also heard once that stammmas could be cuased by forcing lefties to be right handed (is this really true??. What exactly is the philosophy about hand choice in school??

Anyone know??!

Indigo, that's interesting if it's true. My son who is on the spectrum is left handed. I was wondering if a higher percentage of those on the spectrum are left-handed...

I have always bought my left handed DD the left handed scissors from ELC and they work well. Can also get left handed rulers from WH Smiths. She also has a left handed fountain pen which she finds much better than ordinary pens but I can't remember where I got it from!

I have Aspergers and I am left handed. DS also has it, but he is RIGHT handed.

I once asked if there was any correlation between the two, and there's not a definite link, but for example a high proportion of left handers are good with PCs and similarly people with Aspergers are too.

DS writes and irons with his left,everything else;softball, golf,eating, football he uses the right hand/foot.

I don't know if he is right or left 'eyes' though..when he gets back from football and will be testing him .

I have 8 children and he is the only one left-handed! I don't beleive in the ultrasound statement either! I have 2 sets of twins who your are scanned with almost constantly..and children who had kidney probs and had lots of scans and they are all right-handed.

I had a lot of ultrasounds with DS, at least one a week from 32 weeks onwards as well as a Doplar (sp) at UCH. He is the RH one. With my LH DD i did have one extra scan, because I had an amnio, but that was it.

I came across this

Handedness runs in families, although even when both parents are left-handed, there is only a 26% chance of their child being left-handed. Thus, it is clear that genetics is not the only cause. Handedness must also be influenced by some of the other theories presented here.

I was once told by a colleague on the Apsergers spectrum that he was part of a study that academics were doing on the link between lefthanded/right footed-ness and aspergers. No idea what conclusion they came to..
There seems to be a lot of academic straw clutching going on here

auntieveil...I am shocked! i thought that type of behaviour went out with the Ark!

An unpopular theory for causes of left handedness
Difficult or stressful births happen far more commonly among babies who grow up to be left-handed or ambidextrous. Birth stress is also associated with a number of birth defects and complications, including cerebral palsy and autism.

Scientists in Sweden say they have found evidence ultrasound scans may cause brain changes in unborn babies after they found men whose mothers had tests were more likely to be left-handed. The study suggested scanning produced an extra three left-handed babies per 100 births. This research has come under some criticism since it implies that left-handed people are in some way "brain damaged".

I've just found this (can you tell I'm fascinated?)

People who are left-handed are more dextrous with their left hand than with their right hand: they will probably also use their left hand for tasks such as personal care, cooking, and so on. Writing is not as good an indicator of handedness as it might seem, because many people who write with their right hand use their left for everything else.

I'm as fascinated as you mrz . There is a lot of study into ASD and difficult births. Ventouse, lack of oxygen, stuck and squished babies that have to be emc/s etc, must all have had some pressure put on their brains. Big old leap to left handedness - but i suppose there are stranger things.
When my DS was tested at the OT to see if he had a dominant hand, they were amazed that he scored the same timings with both hands. Apparently he is more accurate with his left and speedier, but less accurate with his right - so has to repeat the task. So maybe this is why people use different hands - one is more accurate for certain tasks, some speedier

auntevil my son had a difficult birth and after finally leaving special care stopped breathing on five occasions. He was later diagnosed as ADHD and it has recently been suggested he may be HFA (no official diagnosis as we are trying to decide if it will help at this point) and left handed for everything but writing (which is definitely poor)

I too am fascinated, as my ds is only two , but does a lot of things such as use scissors, plays with his golf club set and so on with his left hand.

He had a very difficult birth, but no other indicators of that.

No-one else in the family is left handed. He may not be, of course, as he is very young, but is very definitely left footed and takes care to switch tricky tasks to his left hand. He will use a pen and eat with either hand.
I have been trying not to assume right handedness for things like getting him to turn pages when reading: is amazing how conditioned I am to sitting on right side, etc.
I was going to put him in a nursery, but when the boss told me of her plan to ensure he did not "become" left handed, thought better of it

Technically, ds had a difficult birth (mid cavity forceps) but is right handed - even though both parents are left handed.

yes, exactlty prettybird... you need a lot of data to get anything close to something that would be statistically rigorous enough to draw conclusions from!

Again it was my righthander that had the difficult birth. Pre Eclampsia from 32 weeks, 3 days inducing, 24 hour labour ending in theatre after failed ventuese. It was going to be emergency cs if forceps failed but the didn't. In contrast my Lefthander was a doddle 4 hours start to finish at 37 weeks. It's also the righthander that has dyslexic problems, but we did wonder if LH DD was dyspraxic for a while as her handwriting was so awful.