Left-handedness is not considered a disadvantage, as it was half a century ago. But their thinking and behavior still seem unusual to others. The thing is that the left-handed brain uses special strategies to solve its problems.
Left-handed parents have to get used to the idea from the very beginning: their child is special. How is he different from other children? What to expect from him, what to prepare for? How to reach mutual understanding? To answer these questions, you need to understand how the brain with the dominant right hemisphere works.
Most often, the leading role of the right hemisphere is determined by genetics. Only 2% of left-handers are born in right-handed families, but if both parents of a child have a dominant right hemisphere, in almost half of the cases this feature will be transmitted to children.
Left-handedness can also develop when a failure occurs in the left hemisphere due to injury or illness. For example, some neurons do not receive nutrition and die. Then the brain urgently redistributes functions, transferring some of them to the right hemisphere.
Neuroscientists at the University of Vienna have published interesting observations: the male hormone testosterone suppresses the development of the left hemisphere in the male fetus. Perhaps that is why there are more left-handers among boys. And since testosterone is more actively produced in the light, those who were conceived in the summer and spring are more likely to be left-handed.
Compared to their right-handed counterparts, left-handers are more sensitive, prone to anxiety and neuroses. They feel the color and shape of objects more subtle, see the differences between things, even when right-handed people consider them absolutely the same.
Left-handed children have a hard time with rigid limits, especially when they find themselves in unfamiliar surroundings.
In general, the worldview of lefties is very individual. They think in images, holistic pictures, and at the same time they experience difficulties with consistent actions, highlighting the main and the secondary. It is much easier for lefties to intuitively understand what another person is talking about, by intonation, facial expressions, than by the specific content of his speech.
But it is difficult for them to translate their thoughts into signs and symbols (which make up any language). For this reason, it can be difficult for left-handed people to explain to others exactly what they mean.
The main feature of the left-handed brain is in the way it processes information. The two hemispheres correspond to two strategies: analytical (sequential) in the left hemisphere and holistic (parallel) in the right.
The left hemisphere is more successful in solving new variants of old tasks, while the right hemisphere is more successful in solving new and old tasks brought to automaticity. The right hemisphere also copes better with the task of intersensory integration, which is responsible for associative thinking, processing information from different senses. Thanks to this, left-handers think non-linearly and find non-standard solutions to problems.
Left-handed children find it hard to endure rigid limits, especially when they find themselves in an unfamiliar environment (in kindergarten, school). But when they are left to their own devices, their abilities flourish. At the same time, the range of interests of a left-hander is not limited to traditionally “creative” activities: among gifted mathematicians and physicists there are also typical right-hemispheric ones.
“The predominance of left-handedness in a child does not allow us to predict how he will grow up and what he will do,” explains psychologist Philip Corr. – Rather, it simply explains to us how his brain works, how he will act in a given situation, what he will choose, what he will pay attention to. Knowing this, we can help lefties reach their potential.”