Left-handed people are at an advantage in a wide range of sports, from fencing to boxing. The sporting advantage also includes taking the right-handed opponent by surprise, because right-handed athletes aren't used to playing against left-handed opponents.
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.
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.
Right-handers' brain organization is usually quite rigid. The right side only handles language and logic; the left side only handles emotion and perception. Meanwhile, left-handers' brains tend to be more flexible—understanding of music could be on the left side or math could be on the right.
Hand preference probably arises as part of the developmental process that differentiates the right and left sides of the body (called right-left asymmetry). More specifically, handedness appears to be related to differences between the right and left halves (hemispheres ) of the brain.
Lefties make up only about 10 percent of the population, but studies find that individuals who are left-handed score higher when it comes to creativity, imagination, daydreaming and intuition. They're also better at rhythm and visualization.
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.
Most of the current research suggests that left-handedness has an epigenetic marker—a combination of genetics, biology and the environment. Because the vast majority of the population is right-handed, many devices are designed for use by right-handed people, making their use by left-handed people more difficult.
The left-handed child may be slower to grasp the concept of the hands moving round a clock face when learning to tell the time, and may find measuring or drawing lines using a ruler difficult, as the markings all start from the left side.
One potentially important determinant of a child's cognitive development is the preference for using the left or right hand. Left- or mixed-handedness has been associated with atypical cognitive abilities, which can have both disadvantageous and advantageous outcomes (Heilman 2005).
You may have heard that left-hand dominance is a sign of a learning disability. Rest assured, in most cases, left-handedness is a normal part of child development. While it is possible for left-handedness to coexist with learning disabilities or other health concerns, this is the exception and not the rule.
Left-handed athletes have an advantage in sports that involve aiming something towards an opponent, whether that's a baseball or tennis ball, or a contact sport such as boxing. The simple fact is, lefties are kind of rare. That's pretty empowering for children who are left-handed and want to play sports.
It's at this point, usually around age two or three, that you may notice your tot using one hand more than the other. However, some children will exhibit signs of left-handedness around the 18-month mark.
Babe Ruth. The Babe is probably the most famous left-handed slugger of all-time.
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.
But handedness has its roots in the brain—right-handed people have left-hemisphere-dominant brains and vice versa—and the lefties who claim Einstein weren't all that far off. While he was certainly right-handed, autopsies suggest his brain didn't reflect the typical left-side dominance in language and speech areas.
Wright and Hardie (2012) found that left-handers reported higher levels of state anxiety but there was no difference in trait anxiety. They also demonstrated that when Trait Anxiety was controlled for, left-handers still showed a higher level of state anxiety compared to right-handers.
Conclusion: Our confidence intervals at a 95% confidence level show that the average IQ for a left handed person is between 117.73 and 127.19 and for a right handed person it is between 109.9 and 123.5.
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.
For example, left handedness determined by grip strength has been shown to be associated with poorer cognitive function [12], whereas left handedness, via self-report, has been shown to be associated with better memory and attention task performance [13].
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.
Since left-handed people are right-brain dominant, it enables them to creative and intuitive. They have high levels of imagination. Since they use their right hemisphere of the brain more prominently, this makes left-handed people more analytical, creative, and verbal, and showcase better language skills.