Left handed infants: How to Raise a Happy Left-Handed Child

How to Raise a Happy Left-Handed Child

In 2007, scientist Clyde Francks discovered a gene responsible for handedness. He named this gene LRRTM1, and he determined that it is passed down from the father. He believes this gene is responsible for making children left-handed or right-handed.

The two sides of the brain have very specific functions. According to an article published in Psychology Today, the left side of the brain is typically where we find the function of language. 

The author explains that the idea of left-handed children being right-brain dominant is a myth. “Among right-handers, left-sided dominance for language approaches upwards of 95 percent prevalence.

However, among left-handed people, this drops to 70 percent, with the others either having language localized to the right hemisphere or spread evenly across both hemispheres.” Other scientific literature also finds that left-handedness does not mean right-brain dominance.

During the first year of life, babies develop rapidly. They are discovering new things, reaching, touching, and picking things up with both hands. If babies are using only one hand at this age, it might be an indication of a developmental delay or a possible neurological condition. Make sure to speak with your pediatrician if you’re concerned.

By the time that your baby reaches two to three years old, they have probably developed a preference for one hand or the other. So, how do you tell if your baby is left-handed? There are some signs of left-handedness that can be identified at this age.

One of the first signs you’ll notice is during normal daily activities like eating. If you place a bowl and spoon in front of your left-handed toddler, they will support the bowl with their right hand (non-dominant) and eat with their spoon in their left hand (dominant).  

As your left-handed baby gets older, you will notice that they will stir food or drinks in a clockwise direction. They will begin to color and draw with their left hand and tend to kick a ball with their left foot. You will start to notice that as they get older and develop fine motor skills, they will use their left hand more each day. 

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In a right-handed world, you might not think that left-handed children have an advantage, but they do — particularly for sports! Sports that require opponents to “face-off” against each other, like tennis and boxing, give left-handers an advantage. The left-handed person is used to facing right-handed people on a regular basis, but the same is not true for their opponents. 

Left-handed children also tend to develop more skills with their non-dominant hand because of living in a right-hand dominant world. At some point in their life, they will need to learn how to adapt to a world in which 90% of the people are different from them. This means they pick up adaptive skills that right-handed kids usually don’t.

There are certain things that you can do to help your left-handed baby. Here we will look at a few tips that will help them develop necessary skills and overcome challenges that they might face.

1. Make them confident

Left-handed children are no different from right-handed children, and they should be shown and told that. Just because they do certain skills with their left hand, it does not make them inferior. In fact, they are unique. Only 10% of the population has this ability, and they are a part of this small special group! 

2. Help them adjust

Your child may struggle with learning certain skills, especially if they are being raised in a family that is right-hand dominant. These can include buttoning clothes, trying to tie their shoelaces, using scissors, etc. If you are raising a left-handed baby, start early by learning how to do these things left-handed yourself. It will be much easier to teach your child if you can do these things already. There are also many different educational tools available that can help you and your child. 

3. Encourage their special skills

This category applies to any child. You should always encourage their special skills. This helps build confidence and self-esteem. For left-handed children, encourage use of the left hand, but allow them to determine what things they choose to do with each hand. Some children will become so efficient that they use their left hand to write but can do most other activities with both hands. 

4. Teach them how to write

Teaching a left-handed child how to write can be very challenging for parents who are right-handed. Typical notebooks are not designed for left-handed children, making it difficult for them to correctly place their hand. If possible, always allow them to use a single sheet of paper to write on an angle with the upper right corner toward their body.  

Encourage them to keep their wrist straight and hold their hand below the area of writing. Be sure that they are gripping the pen, pencil, or crayon far enough down from the point.  This allows for natural hand placement and movement while forming letters and words, to be able to see what they are writing and not smear the text. 

5. Don’t influence their hand preference

Never discourage a child from determining whether they will be left-handed or right-handed. Forcing a child to use their non-dominant hand creates unnecessary frustration. Being left-handed is just another special trait that makes your child who they are. 

When do you know whether your baby is right- or left-handed?

[By: Lisanne Schröer]

When you grab your keys to go to work in the morning, or when you make a grocery list, which hand do you use? Simple tasks in our daily life like these involve an important aspect of motor planning: hand preference.

If you are a parent of a young baby, you might have seen them using both hands equally when, for example, they are trying to feed themselves. This, while almost all adults have a hand preference for which hand you use. Have you ever wondered when we start to have a preference for which hand we use in everyday tasks?

Handedness
In humans, about 90% of us are right-handed [1]. Hand preference refers to which hand we prefer to use for a task that we typically do with one hand [2]. However, preference for using for example your right hand versus your left hand is not the only aspect of hand preference. How strongly we prefer one hand above the other is also a defining factor [3]. Even if you recognise yourself as left-handed, there may be several things you prefer to do with your right hand (or the other way around). Surprisingly, research has shown that right-handed people on average have a stronger hand preference than left-handed people, meaning that left-handers use their non-preferred right hand for more tasks [4]. Even more so, a very few of us are ambidextrous or show a mixed hand preference [5].

Development
The earliest precursors of handedness can be detected in unborn babies. The majority of unborn babies move their right arm more than their left arm from around the 10^th week of pregnancy, and most unborn babies mostly suck their right thumb from the 15^th week of pregnancy [6].

However, hand preference typically emerges in the first two years of life. Some demonstrate a consistent preference for one hand over the other from very early stages of life, while other show a more variable preference. Generally, by the age of two, most children have established a consistent hand preference [7].

Hand preference for grasping objects emerges around 6 months of age, while hand preference for manipulating objects starts to show around 10 to 11 months of age. By 13 to 14 months of age, children start to have a clear preference for using one hand over the other in tasks where they need to use both hands simultaneously, each for a different purpose. An example would be a task that involves holding a piece of paper with one hand and using a pair of scissors to cut the paper with the other hand. This preference becomes stable around 18 months of age [7]. Hand preference in other task might take a longer time to stabilize. For instance, a study found that a consistent hand preference for grasping Lego blocks in the process of constructing a tower appears around 4 years of age [8].

Origin
Although the exact origin of handedness is unknown, researchers have suggested that hand preference is related to the hemispherical specialization of one hemisphere in fine motor skills [6]. The movements of hands are controlled by the opposite side of your brain. Simply put, your right hand is controlled by the left hemisphere, while your left hand is controlled by the right hemisphere [1].

Researchers often suggest that hand preference has a strong genetic component. Children whose parents are both left-handed are three to four times more likely to be left-handed than children whose parents are right-handed [9].

Animals
Interestingly, other animal species also show a hand preference, varying per individual. However, most species do not show population-level handedness, like the majority of humans are right-handed [10]. Although, there are some exceptions. Most kangaroos, for instance, appear to have a preference for the left paw [11].

Primates, such as chimpanzees, gorillas and macaques have shown to have a consistent individual hand preference [12]. The development of their hand preference seems to be quite similar to the development in human children. For instance, chimpanzees also show their hand preference by two years of age, which is found to be stable through adolescence [13]. The hereditability of hand preference is also found in primates like chimpanzees [14].

Conclusion
All in all, hand preference becomes stable over infancy and early childhood. Every child seems to have their own trajectory. Some infants may show a stable preference from very early on, while others take more time to demonstrate a clear preference. Most children show a consistent hand preference by the age of two, although for some tasks it may develop or become apparent earlier than for other tasks.

So how early might you tell if your baby is right- or left-handed? According to some sources, right-handed babies tend to turn their head to the right side when placed on their tummies, while left-handed babies regularly turn their head to the left or have no preference for both sides [15]. But only time will show whether this also applies to your child.

References
[1] Sharoun, S. M., & Bryden, P. J. (2014). Hand preference, performance abilities, and hand selection in children. Frontiers in Psychology, 5: 82. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00082
[2] Annett, M. (1970). A classification of hand preference by association analysis. British Journal of Psychology, 61(3), 303-321. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8295.1970.tb01248.x
[3] Steenhuis, R. E., & Bryden M. P. (1989). Different dimensions of hand preference that relate to skilled and unskilled activities. Cortex, 25(2), 289-304. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-9452(89)80044-9
[4] Yahagi, S., & Kasai, T. (1999) Motor evoked potentials induced by motor imagery reveal a functional asymmetry of cortical motor control in left- and right-handed human subjects. Neuroscience Letters, 276(3), 185-188. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3940(99)00823-X
[5] de Kovel, C. G. F., Carrión-Castillo, A., & Francks, C. (2019). A large-scale population study of early life factors influencing life-handedness. Scientific Reports, 9: 584. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-37423-8
[6] Corballis, M. C. (2014). Left brain, right brain: Facts and fantasies. PLOS Biology, 12(1): e1001767. https://doi.10.1371/journal.pbio.1001767
[7] Michel, G. F., Campbell, J. M., Marcinowski, E. C., Nelson, E. L., & Babik, I. (2016). Infant hand preference and the development of cognitive abilities. Frontiers in Psychology, 7:410. https://doi.org/103389/fpsyg.2016.00410
[8] Sacrey, L.-A. R., Arnold, B., Whishaw, I. Q., & Gonzalez, C. L. R. (2012). Precocious hand use preference in reach-to-eat behaviour versus manual construction in 1- to 5-year-old children. Developmental Psychobiology, 55(8), 902-911. https://doi.org/10.1002/dev.21083
[9] Bryden, M. P., Roy, E. A., McManus, I. C., & Bulman-Fleming, M. B. (1997). On the genetics and measurement of human handedness. Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, 2(3/4), 371-336. https://doi.org/10.1080/71375429
[10] Warren, J. M. (1980). Handedness and laterality in humans and other animals. Physiological Psychology, 8(3), 351-359. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337470
[11] Giljov, A., Karenina, K., Ingram, J., & Malashichev, Y. (2015). Parallel emergence of true handedness in evolution of marsupials and palacentals. Current Biology, 25, 1878-1884. https://doi. org/j.cub.2015.05.043
[12] Annett, M., & Annett, J. (1991). Handedness for eating in gorillas. Cortex, 27(2), 269-275. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0010-9452(13)80131-1;
Regaiolli, B., Spiezio, C., Hopkins, W. D. (2018). Hand preference on unimanual and bimanual tasks in Barbary macaques (Macaca Sylvanus). American Journal of Primatology, 80(3): e22745. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajp.22745;
Meguerditchian, A., Phillips, K. A., Chapelain, A., Mahovetz, L. M., Milne, S., Stoinski, T., … Hopkins, W. D. (2015). Handedness for unimanual grasping in 564 great apes: The effect on grip morphology and a comparison with hand use for a bimanual coordinated task. Frontiers in Psychology, 6: 1974. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01794
[13] Hopkins, W. D. (1995). Hand preferences for simple reaching in juvenile chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): Continuity in development. Developmental Psychology, 31(4), 619-625. https://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649. 31.4.619
[14] Hopkins, W. D., Dahl J. F., & Pilcher, D. (2001). Genetic influence on the expression of hand preference in chimpanzees (Pan Troglodytes): Evidence in support of the right-shift theory and developmental instability. Psychological Science, 12(4), 299-303. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00355
[15] Coren, S. (1992). The left-hander syndrome: The causes and consequences of left-handedness. Detroit, MI: Free Press. As cited in: Lehnardt, K. (2016, September 23). 62 interesting left handed facts [Blog post]. Retrieved from: https://www.factretriever.com/left-handedness-facts

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Photo 3 by Porco Rosso on Unsplash

Left-handed children: features of left-handed education

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• Development of children

It would seem that left-handers differ from right-handers only in that they write with the “wrong” hand. In fact, this is far from the case. The differences are very noticeable in childhood. Parents of little lefties notice that their children behave and develop differently from others. The behavioral characteristics of a left-handed child often baffle adults.

Left handed features

Left-handed children are usually very creative, but have a more complex personality. They are very emotional, a little more vulnerable than right-handed children, impressionable. For left-handers, the period of childish obstinacy is prolonged for a long time and an increased sense of justice is preserved for life.

At an early age, left-handers experience difficulties in the development of speech and, compared with peers, learn to speak longer. At school, problems will almost certainly arise with mathematics: since left-handed people later develop the left hemisphere of the brain, which is responsible for logic and spatial thinking, it is much more difficult for them to solve even elementary problems than for right-handers. However, there are pluses: left-handed children have a phenomenal memory: it is easier for them to learn a verse in a few minutes, in addition, left-handers have a clear ability for foreign languages.

Is it worth retraining a left-hander?

In Soviet times, all left-handers were “driven” to the right-handed world. Even in kindergarten, such special kids were forced to eat, draw, sculpt with their right hand. Such a gross intervention in the development of the personality did not pass without a trace: the children’s appetite decreased, academic performance and health worsened. Also, the kids complained of headaches, became withdrawn.

How to raise a left-hander in a right-handed world?

It is more difficult for left-handed children to socialize, other children immediately notice their behavioral characteristics. Left-handers are very sincere, they do not know how to lie and do not understand why this is necessary. Such children are more upset because of failures, they rejoice brighter at successes and therefore seem strange to their peers.

This is why family support is so important for left-handed babies. You should not be excessively strict, trying to cope with the stubbornness of a left-handed child. Greater success in raising such children can be achieved by showing patience. Left-handers should not say the word “no”, it is better to explain why it is undesirable to do so.

School years

When choosing a school for a left-handed child, it is better to avoid specialized educational institutions with in-depth study of disciplines. In the first few years, left-handers already have a difficult time in school due to the late development of the left hemisphere of the brain. Closer to the age of ten, it will become much easier to study, but it is impossible to let the problems with studying in the lower grades take their course in order to prevent the emergence of gaps in knowledge.

Do not forget to praise your child for success. Lefties need it more than anyone! To hear how good he is, the child will do anything.

Sports sections for left-handers

Left-handers for coaches in sports such as fencing or tennis are worth their weight in gold. But still, it is better to choose those sports where both hands are equally involved: volleyball, swimming, skiing, gymnastics.

Do not forget that left-handed children, as creative natures, must express themselves. If the child is not disposed to sports, look for other hobbies: dancing, needlework, drawing.

And remember, you are lucky to be the parents of a unique baby. Whatever a left-handed child undertakes, he will definitely succeed.

Don’t forget to tell your friends about this article!

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Left-handed child: features of development and learning

Those of us who studied in the Soviet school found the times when left-handers were retrained to the right hand. Even 30 years ago, left-handedness was considered a defect, a mistake of nature, because everything in the world was made for right-handed people. Gradually, the attitude towards this changed, left-handers are no longer “remade” en masse. How does the brain of left-handed children work? Do they need to be taught in a special way? On International Left-Handed Day, Natalya Fedosova-Lebedeva, a child psychologist and Montessori teacher at the Nashi Penaty school, shares recommendations for parents of such children.

Natalya Fedosova-Lebedeva, psychologist at the Our Penates school

The attitude to left-handedness as something wrong created a lot of problems for left-handed children. Both parents and teachers strove to correct this “flaw” at all costs, and the methods were very harsh. I will quote a few people who were tried to be retrained as children.

“When I went to school, they retrained me to be right-handed. My parents were afraid that I would be bullied at school, and everything in the world is not suitable for left-handed people. As a result, I write with my right hand, but until the third grade I had a nervous tic and had a slight temperature all the time.

“A teacher at school said she wouldn’t teach left-handers. My parents got scared and started retraining me. I started to stutter, I was afraid to go to school, where the teacher hit my hand with a pointer when I accidentally took the pen in my left hand. My parents changed their mind and transferred me to another class. So I remained left-handed.”

“I am right-handed, but I can only peel an egg with my left hand. For this, in childhood, a spoon flew into my forehead from my father, he was very afraid that I would be left-handed.

As can be seen from these words, parents were very worried about left-handed children and were afraid that it would be difficult for them to live with this feature. Someone managed to retrain such a child, but at what cost! Overtrained left-handers had learning difficulties, neurosis, manifested in sleep and appetite disorders, tics, stuttering, enuresis. As a result, there is a loss of learning motivation, a decrease in activity, isolation, and high anxiety. Some were lucky: at best, after relearning, the child coped with the negative consequences and used both hands fully. For some, not so much: often left-handed children retained for the rest of their lives a deep trauma, low self-esteem, a sense of their own inferiority, and that same neurosis. There is even a name for this phenomenon: dextrastress. This is a state of neuroticism that occurs in left-handed children when natural movements are restricted for forced relearning. The mass rejection of relearning is caused precisely by the discovery of this phenomenon.

Left-handedness is normal!

Current issues related to left-handedness can be divided into two main categories: is it normal and what to do if the child is left-handed?

Based on the accumulated knowledge, we can say that left-handedness is not a pathology, but an individual variant of the norm, which often depends on the innate structural features of the child’s brain. Left-handedness does not lead to deviations in development or to a decrease in a person’s abilities. Teachers and psychologists are unanimous in their opinion: left-handed children cannot be retrained!

Let’s see what is the peculiarity of the left-handed brain. The brain consists of two hemispheres, one of them is the leading one. The dominant hand is associated with the dominant hemisphere, opposite in relation to it. That is, if the leading hemisphere is right, then the leading hand is left, and vice versa. The left hemisphere is analytical, logical, processes information sequentially, acts rationally. It solves problems, formulates hypotheses, analyzes, develops concepts, judgments, is responsible for speech, reading and writing. This is the leading hemisphere for a right-handed child.

The right hemisphere is figurative, processes information instantly, perceives it as a holistic image. It operates with non-verbal signals, processes and stores information about sensory images, artistic vision of the world. The right hemisphere is characterized by the dominance of intuition. For a right-brained person, it is important not what is said, but how it is said, he subtly feels the intonation. The right hemisphere is dominant for a left-handed child.

Why do some people have the dominant hand on the right and others on the left? There is no definite answer to this question, but scientists identify several factors:

• Genetic predisposition: one of the parents, grandparents is left-handed. In this case, the probability of having a left-handed child is very high.

• Violations, injuries received during pregnancy and childbirth.

• Forced left-handedness after an injury to the right hand, with brain damage, imitation of significant adults.

How to determine the dominant hand

Even before school, you need to understand which hand your child has, because even before entering the first grade, children learn to write. Until the age of four, children perform most of the actions with both hands, the functions of the brain do not yet have a clear localization. By the age of five, the connections between the hemispheres of the brain and the body are strengthened, and a strong preference for the dominant hand is formed. What to do if this did not happen, and you still cannot understand which hand is more convenient for the child to use? Use special methods to determine the leading hand:

• Watch the child: with which hand does he eat, with which he takes toys, waves goodbye, brushes his teeth.

• Invite the child to lock their fingers together. Above will be the thumb of the dominant hand.

• Have the child draw circles with both hands at the same time. The circles at the leading hand will be clearer, even.

• Ask the child to take a mug from the table, water the flowers, take books from the shelf, open/close the lock at the front door, wind the thread on the spool, cut the paper with scissors. It is important that objects are at the same distance from the left and right hands, have access from all sides. It is more informative to offer the child an unfamiliar business. If the child performs actions with his left hand, while his movements are accurate, then we are left-handed.

How to teach left-handers

Left-handedness is not a disorder, it is an individual feature of brain functioning. It cannot be an obstacle to the development and learning of the child and the achievement of success in life. The world knows people, outstanding professionals who were left-handed: Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Pablo Picasso, Bill Gates, Winston Churchill, Napoleon, Charlie Chaplin, Friedrich Nietzsche and many, many others.

However, left-handed children have a number of features that must be taken into account when teaching. Parents and teachers can make the following recommendations.

Consider the child’s temperament

Left-handers are more sensitive and emotional, so many of them choose creative professions: these are actors, musicians, artists, poets. At the same time, they are more responsive to stress, prone to increased anxiety and depression.

As a rule, lefties are slow. Don’t rush or scold them, and schedule more time to adjust to a right-handed world and to master complex activities, especially reading and writing. In training, be sure to use various creative tasks, drawings, diagrams, visual aids for a better understanding of the material. Present the material step by step, show the child the algorithm of actions. Track the direction of the row from left to right in games and various activities. Pay attention to the organization of the workplace: space is needed for the left hand, the light must fall on the right

Don’t try to make him “normal”

It is important for adults to be considerate of a left-handed child. Do not show a negative attitude towards left-handedness. Remember, this feature is an individual version of the norm, like eye color. Your task is to develop a sense of confidence in the child, to support his self-esteem. Don’t try to retrain your child. This can lead to additional learning difficulties and serious health problems.

Improve the learning environment

Try using special writing instruments and copybooks for left-handed children. They can make the educational environment more comfortable. Nowadays, familiar items are being modernized and actively produced for use by left-handers: scissors, pens, copybooks, sharpeners and rulers, computer mice and keyboards, and even guitars, sewing machines and hockey sticks!

Help Overcome Writing Difficulties

Most often, left-handed people have difficulty learning to write. The left hemisphere is responsible for this skill, and for right-handed people it is from it that signals come when writing to the dominant hand. In left-handers, they must pass through the bridge (corpus callosum) between the hemispheres, since the right hemisphere controls the left hand. This requires more effort and time. Hence, there may be delays in the development of speech and difficulties with writing.

It is important to pay attention to the comfortable position of the hand when writing: the left hand with the pen is under the line. With this method, the child does not lubricate what is written, sees the sample, he does not need to twist his hand. The only negative is that the letters are slanted to the left, which is contrary to the requirements of calligraphy. In addition, 85% of left-handed children have a mirror writing problem.

Do not demand to write continuously, connecting all the letters together. To help your child, offer him games with letters, their modeling and drawing. Write letters and words together in the sand, on the table, in the air.

Develop both hands

Left-handers are not the opposite of right-handers. It is much easier for him to master the work with the second hand. The development of both hands is facilitated by playing with the ball, swimming, table tennis, “chasing” with a small ball, modeling, knitting, tying and untying knots, picking up mosaics, unwinding and twisting covers, and other activities that develop coordination and motor skills.

Leverage Left-Handed Strengths

Left-handed strengths come to the fore in creativity through an active right-handed, imaginative hemisphere. Such children can also achieve good results in sports due to motor asymmetry: boxing, tennis, fencing, game types.

Teaching a left-handed child requires more attention and patience from the surrounding adults. Tune in a positive mood, it is in your power to organize a comfortable learning space for your child!

Read also:

4 reasons why a child does not do homework and how to fix it

10 reasons to choose the School of Russia program for a first grader

Logorhythm: developing speech with movement

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