The
world has been inquisitive, amazed and even scared of them. They have been
looked upon as objects of curiosity. People never understood why they do things
the way they do. The right handed population has always had the upper hand in
life compared to the Left Handed.
Almost
10% of the people are predominantly left handed. About 1% of the people are
ambidextrous i.e they use either hand for doing daily tasks.
In
most civilizations and traditions across the world, the left hand has been
considered the impure one or the unholy one. It has also been traditionally
believed that the left hand brings bad luck. In India we never hand out or
receive anything with the left hand.
Left
handed children have often been accused of being clumsy and not being able to
do things ’properly’. Quite frequently parents have tried
to ‘rectify this defect’ in their child and forcefully ensure that the child
uses the right hand. But the right hand
for a left handed child is the left one.
The
brain is divided into two hemispheres: the right and the left. The left brain
controls the right side of the body and the right brain controls the left side
of the brain. Research has proved that the functioning of the brain is to a
great extent responsible for the handedness of a person. Left handed people
thus usually have very active right brains.
Most
babies begin to use both the hands simultaneously. It’s usually by the age of
five that infants begin to show preferences for the use of their hands. In most people where the right side of the
body is the stronger side, inputs are taken from the right eye, the right ear
and the rest of the right body and passed on to the left side of the brain. In
left handed people it is seen that not only is their right brain more active,
they are very comfortable with simultaneous, bi hemisphere processing of data.
There
is enough research to prove that it not just the dominant side of the brain
that affects the handedness of a person. A number of factors go into it like
the genetics and the foetal development. Research is still trying to discover
if the levels of testosterone in the womb at the time of foetal development has
anything to do with being left handed as it has been noticed that among
lefthanders, the majority are male.
So
being left handed has more to do with genetics and brain dominance than evil
and bad luck. The left handed child is not clumsy. He is a left handed child
trying to manipulate things made for predominantly right handed people. From
keyboard designs to door handles, to cars, everything is created for a right
hander. The fact that left handers are more ambidextrous only displays the
plasticity of their brains to adapt to situations. It has also been found that
right handers are not as dexterous with their left one as are left handed
people with their right one.
Being
able to process data between both hemispheres faster and better, left handed
people have an advantage in many areas of sport and learning. Research has
shown that the top 20% of all Mensa members are left handed. It has also been
noticed that left handed people are better at multi-tasking and yes, better at
playing video games! They may be more visual based learners and hence far more oriented
to follow the creative arts.
As
parents you make a note of which hand is dominant in your toddler. Initially
most children are ambidextrous and will soon figure out which is their own
dominant hand. See what hand he uses to eat, pick up toys, write and
paint. Speak to the teacher at school so
that your child is placed on the left hand side of a desk which leaves him free
to be able to write.
While
teaching your child how to tie shoe laces or bows sit in front of them and
demonstrate. Thus they get the mirror image of what you are doing and thus is
becomes easier for them to learn these skills. At the same time do not try to
change too many things for the left handed child because, at the end of the day
he has to navigate in a world which may not be so kind. But don’t at any time
try to rewire his preferences. Left handed children learn how to negotiate a
right handed world in their own way. In fact a typical qwerty keypad has 3500
words that can be typed with only the left hand while there are only 450 words
which can be typed using only the right hand.
Encourage
and motivate you child just in case he gets too hassled working out things for
himself. Remind him that famous people like Mahatma Gandhi, Bill Clinton, Ravi
Shastri, Charlie Chaplin, Barack Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Mark Twain are all
lefthanders.
August
13th is the International Left handers day.
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