Handedness and autism

[speedo]

Some researchers say that a lot of autistics are left handed. Also, many autistics have poor lateralization of brain function so they are often left-right brained and may be ambidextrious.

I am left handed for writing , but ambidextrious for most other things. The usual tests show me to be left-right or only slightly right brained, for example.

Here are some online left-right hemisphere dominance tests (and some others):

http://similarminds.com/personality_tests.html

Below are a lot of links about handedness.

http://www.autismwebsite.com/arri/v014/page2.pdf

http://www.le.ac.uk/psychology/doc/

http://psychology.hypnoticworld.com/...handedness.php

http://www.neoteny.org/a/lateralization3.html

http://www.mugsy.org/shields2.htm

http://preventdisease.com/news/artic...ess_gene.shtml

[Imnapl]

My brother and my son are both ambidextrous; both are ADHD, but not Autistic.

[speedo]

I did not find any info on handedness and ADHD. It might be interesting to find such info.

A lot of epileptics are lefties too. Also a lot of autistics are epileptic.
I was diagnosed as epileptic as a child. I've been seizure free for many years though.

Me

[Crazygirl79]

I'm not autistic but I'm right handed for writing and most other things

[Fasthummingbird]

Have you found anything about the color of hair and color of eyes, pertaining to autisum or AD/HD

I had an uncle (my dads brother) that was autistic, very blond hair when he was young, darken as he aged, very blue eyes, my dad has been blond most of his life, he now has very white hair, eyes blue, undignosed AD/HD, but I know, because of my AD/HD

I'm AD/HD, very blond hair when young, has darken as I'ved aged, very blue eyes, I have 4 children, three are blonds and still blonds as they have aged, 2 with blue eyes, 1 with green, 1 with dark hair and blue eyes, the blonds are undignosed AD/HD, but as a AD/HD mother I KNOW, the dark haired one has know problems

ditto for two of my three sisters, one sister has three sons, 2 blue eyed, blonds, AD/HD, 1 dark haired, brown eyes, know problem

the youngest of the four of us died when she was eighteen months, very blond and blue eyes, looking back, she was very AD/HD

1 sister born brown hair, green eyes, has know problems, she has 2 children, both very blond and blue eyes, 1 has aspergers and 1 is AD/HD

our mother was born, brown hair ,green eyes and know problems

there are alot of blue eyed ,blonds on both sides of the families and they (all) show signs of AD/HD, and four of them have been dignosed with aspergers

where I worked you could see alot of AD/HD in people, when I asked the ones I thought had AD/HD what color their was when they were born, blond with blue or green eyes, there hair had darken

I just know so many people that could be AD/HD, that had or have blond hair, blue or green eyes, I just can't help but wonder if there is a connection, that's why I'm asking

anyone have thoughts on this ?

Oh! there are leftys also

[speedo]

Some researchers say that a lot of autistics are left handed. Also, many autistics have poor lateralization of brain function so they are often left-right brained and may be ambidextrious.

I am left handed for writing , but ambidextrious for most other things. The usual tests show me to be left-right or only slightly right brained, for example.

Here are some online left-right hemisphere dominance tests (and some others):

http://similarminds.com/personality_tests.html

Below are a lot of links about handedness.

http://www.autismwebsite.com/arri/v014/page2.pdf

http://www.le.ac.uk/psychology/doc/

Left-handedness: Does it mean anything?

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 indicater of handedness as it might seem, because many people who write with their right hand use their left for everything else.




Approximately 10-13% of the population is left-handed. People who can use both hands equally well are ambidextrous. True ambidexterity is rare.

Generally, males are three times more likely to be left-handed than females. Statistically, one twin of a pair has a 20% chance to be left-handed. Gay people may be up to 39% as likely to be left-handed as straight people (Habib, 2000).




Causes of left-handedness


No one knows for certain why the human population is right-handed-dominant, but a number of theories have been proposed.


Evolutionary theories: The warrior and his shield




This theory attempts to explain left-handedness by the position of a warrior's shield and his heart. Basically, since the heart is on the left side of the body, a warrior holding his shield with his left hand would be better able to protect his heart than if he held it with his right. Thus, a greater mortality of left-handers would explain the prevalence of right-handedness today.



There are a number of objections to this theory:

• The heart is not that far off center. While it is on the left side of the body, it is still fairly central in location. Protecting it with a shield would only result in a weak selective pressure, and there have not been enough generations since the bronze age.

• It predicts that more men would be right-handed than women. However, data indicates that more males are left-handed than females.
  Analysis of ancient cave paintings indicate that humanity was right-handed long before the bronze age.

Brain hemisphere division of labour




This is the most commonly accepted theory of handedness. The premise of this theory is that since both speaking and handiwork require fine motor skills, having one hemisphere of the brain do both would be more efficient than having it divided up. And since in most people, the left side of the brain controls speaking, right-handedness would prevail. It also predicts that left-handed people would have a reversed brain division of labour. Lastly, since other primates do not have a spoken language (at least of the type we have) there would be no stimulus for right-handed preference among them, and that is true.



Objections:

• It does not explain why the left hemisphere would always be the one controlling language. Why not 50% of the population left and 50% right?
  While 95% of right-handers do indeed use the left side of the brain for speaking, it is more variable for left-handers. Some do use the right for linguistic skills, some use the left hemisphere, and others use both.

• On the balance, it appears that this theory could well explain some left-handedness, but it has too many gaps to explain all left-handedness.

Is left-handedness genetic?



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.



Apparantly, the Clan Kerr of Scotland built their castles with counter-clockwise staircases, so that a left-handed swordsmen would be better able to defend it. However, a 1993 study found no statistically significant increase in left-handedness among people with the family name Kerr or Carr.



Many members of the British royal family are left-handed. Genetics is usually used to explain this.


Environmental theories





Birth stress


Left-handed people cringe at this theory, because its basic premise is that left-handedness is due to brain damage during the birth process. Unfortunately, some statistics do back this theory up.

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.



But there are objections; you can breathe easy now:

• Throughout history and throughout the world, the level of medicine and technology to assist with childbirth has improved. In spite of that, the proportion of left-handed people has not decreased. (In a sense, it has increased because more people see left-handedness as the benign trait it is.)
• 
  It does not explain why humans are right-handed by default, with only birth stress making them left-handed. It could, however, explain left-handedness in combination with some of the other theories presented here.

Parental pressure


This theory explains right-handed dominance by claiming that since the parents who raised us are mostly right-handed, we came to be mostly right-handed and so on.



Objections:

• It does not explain how right-handed dominance started in the first place.
• The handedness of children is more closely related to their biological parents than to adoptive parents.
• It does not explain why left-handedness has persisted for so long.

Social stigma and repression of left-handedness


Throughout history being left-handed was considered as negative - the Latin word sinister meant "left". Hence the many negative connotations associated with the word "left-handed": clumsy, awkward, unlucky, insincere, sinister, malicious, and so on. There have been, however, many famous left-handed people, and the associated right brain hemisphere that is said to be more active in left-handed people, has been found in some circumstances to be associated with genius and is correlated with artistic and visual skill.



Until very recently in Taiwan, left-handed people were strongly encouraged to switch to being right-handed (or at least, switch to writing with the right hand). It is more difficult to write legible Chinese characters with the left hand than it is to write Latin letters. Remember that "easy" and "difficult" depend on the person using those terms, so your writing may be neater. Because it is supposedly easier to write when moving your hand towards its side of the body, it is easier to write the Roman alphabet with your right hand than with your left. Conversly, Arabic and Hebrew, which go from right to left, would be easier to write with the left hand. Again, "easier" and "harder" are subjective.

It is possible that sun worship relates to the association of the left with evil. People in the northern hemisphere, looking south, would see the sun rise on their left, move rightwards across the sky, and set on their right. In the southern hemisphere the opposite happens. Among cultures from the southern hemisphere, right-handedness is still dominant. No study on left-side connotations from those cultures has been done.



However, since most sun-worshipping cultures see the setting sun as it dying or vanishing, the right side would indicate the negative associations associated with a setting sun. This is the opposite trend from that.



Left-sidedness



In humans




Studies show that left-handedness does not necessarily correspond with "left-sidedness" (using your left foot to kick with, for example). The same thing holds with "eyedness."




In animals




Most primates also exhibit a preference for using one hand over the other although their populations are not right-hand preferential.





http://psychology.hypnoticworld.com/...handedness.php

http://www.neoteny.org/a/lateralization3.html

http://www.mugsy.org/shields2.htm

http://preventdisease.com/news/artic...ess_gene.shtml

[speedo]

Twin Study Suggests Right-
Handedness Is Gene-Based
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A new study of twins bolsters the belief that there may be a gene that distinguishes righties from lefties, and perhaps influences the structure and function of their brains as well.

California researchers examined 72 pairs of identical twins, who share all of the same genes, and 67 pairs of fraternal twins, who share many but not all genes. All were World War II veterans enrolled in a long-term government brain study, and their average age was 72. All patients underwent MRI scans to compare the sizes of the left and right sides of their brains.

The scans indicated that righties had less symmetrical brains than the lefties, as has been shown in previous research, Dr. Daniel Geschwind and colleagues report in the March 5th issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

And when the researchers compared individual pairs of identical and fraternal twins, they found that the brains of the right-handed identical siblings were the most similar structurally, suggesting a strong genetic underpinning to right-handedness that does not seem to be present for left-handedness.

"The brain structure differences in right-handers seem to have a significant genetic component," said Geschwind, director of the neurogenetics program at University of California, Los Angeles. "We've shown this for the first time."

Geschwind told Reuters Health that previous studies have found that nearly all right-handers have language function based in the left side of the brain. But this is only the case in about 60% of lefties; the others have language function based in the right half of the brain or shared between the two.

Studies also have indicated that while many lefties are gifted at mathematics, architecture and music, they also tend to be more likely to have stuttering problems, dyslexia and autism, Geschwind noted.

"Being left-handed clearly has many advantages," he said. "It can also reflect a greater susceptibility to language-based learning disorders."

As a result, studies like this one are important for researchers trying to understand how left- or right-handedness relates to brain functioning and for those hoping to develop new therapies for speech disorders, he said

[speedo]

This is not complete. refer to the hyperlink on lateralization in the first posting in this thread.

"It is possible to distinguish at least three theories that predict an increase in the rate of non-right-handedness in children with developmental language disorders. We may start with the theory of atypical cerebral lateralization, first proposed by Orton, and discussed at length in Chapter 11 in relation to specific reading difficulties. This theory maintains that adequate language functioning depents on verbal operations being predominantly mediated by the left cerebral hemisphere. Non-right-handedness is seen as an indirect manifestation of atypical cerebral lateralization, and so should be unusually common in lanuage-impaired children. Annett's right shift theory, also reviewed in Chapter 11, may be regarded as a variant of this theory. According to Annett and Kilshaw (1984) we would expect children who lack the right shift factor (who do not have strong left hemisphere language superiority, and do not show large skill differences between the hands) to be at particular risk for developmental language disorders. The theory also predicts that extreme right-handedness (where weak left hand skills are indicative of poor right hemisphere functioning) might be common in this group. The second theory to consider is that of pathological left-handedness. At first glance, it seems plausible that specific language difficulties in children, like acquired aphasia in adults, might arise as a consequence of a focal lesion of the left cerebral hemisphere. Such a lesion might also impinge on brain areas concerned with motor function, so raising the probability that a naturally right-handed individual will shift to become left-handed. The third possibility is that children with specific language disorders may show increased randomness in their hand preferences. The notion of increased randomness was first introduced in Chapter 9 in the context of mental impairment. According to this theory, reliable and consistent hand preference for an activity is a function of motor skill, which will depend both on practice and on neurological status. Increased randomness might be predicted in children with specific developmental disorders as well as in those with more global mental impairment, in so far as these disorders are associated with neuromotor immaturity." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 131)

"The studies on lateralization of motor and language functions in this population caution against equating morphological brain symmetry with lack of language lateralization. Rather, just as with dyslexic children, it seems likely that language-impaired children have verbal functions lateralized to the left hemisphere, but this hemisphere is not sufficiently well-developed to process language adequately." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 136)

"A link between gender and handedness is widely though not universally accepted. Annett's (1985) review of the literature confirmed that, although some studies have failed to find sex differences, most large-scale investigations do report a slight preponderance of males among non-right-handers. Her own work using peg-moving to assess relative skill of the two sides found that, on average, females show a more pronounced superiority of the right hand over the left than do males." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 146)

"Annett's (1975, 1985) right shift theory (see Chapter 3) leads to much more precise predictions than other theories concerned with cerebral lateralization, because handedness is treated as a condition variable that can be measured in terms of relative proficiency of the two hands. According to this theory, handedness is determined by environmental factors interacting with genotype. Individuals who are homozygous for the right shift allele (rs + +) will be very likely to show both left hemisphere language representation and right-handedness, because this genotype strongly boosts early left hemisphere development." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 127)

"On closer inspection of their data, Annett and Kilshaw found that hand difference scores for right-handed dyslexics were more extreme than those of controls. This finding led them to reformulate the theory to propose that both types of homozygote, rs - - and rs + +, are at risk for learning disabililties. Annett's original account suggested that overcommitment to left hemisphere languge processing (in rs+ + individuals) might result in selective impairment of right hemisphere visuospatial skills. However, the dyslexia study of Annett and Kilshaw and a later study of intellectual development by Annett and Manning (1989) indicated that verbal as well as visuospatial development tends to be poor in those who are very strongly right-handed. Annett has argued that the disadvantages in intellecutual development associated with both types of homozygote can explain why the rs- gene is maintained in the population." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 128)

"What would give greater credence to Annett's genetic theory of dyslexia would be a demonstration that strongly right-handed and non-right-handed dyslexics had different types of reading problem. .... Although atypical cerebral dominance seems likely as a cause of dyslexia, the related idea of a neuromaturational lag is more attractive. On this view, lack of strong handedness is not a sign of bilateral language mediation, but of neurological immaturity. Unfortunately, reliance on handedness inventories in the majority of studies makes it difficult to test this notion against published data. As argued in Chapter 5, inventories confound cases where there is a delay in establishing hand preference and those where there is a stable mixed or left hand preference. It may be that by failing to distinguish these different subgroups of non-right-hander, links between handedness and developmental dyslexia have been obscured. If dyslexia reflects neurodevelopmental immaturity, then it is only unstable hand preference that is relavant. Although his sample size was small, Harris's (1957) finding of excess mixed-handedness among 7-year-old but not 9-year-old poor readers is compatible with the notion that a lag in establishing hand preference may be an indicator of neuromotor immaturity in dyslexics." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 129)
"If the results form these three studies are combined, the overall proportion of left-handers is 13.3 per cent for autistic children and 8.3 per cent for matched controls, not a significant difference. However, if left- and mixed-handers are summed, then the frequency of non-right-handedness among autistic children is considerably higher than that found in age-matched normally developing children although it is similar to that found in other children of the same intellectual ability." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 111)

"Evidence against a genetic predisposition to left-handedness in autism came from studies by Boucher (1977), Tsai (1982) and Fein et al. (1985), all of which found that the overall rate of left-handed relatives in autistic individuals was similar to expected population values, and non-right-handers and right-handers had similar numbers of left-handed relatives." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 111)

"A second, theoretical, point is that even if we accept that there is a significant excess of non-right-handedness in dylexia, the percentage is well below that which would be expected if weak cerebral lateralization were the major cause of dyslexia." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 125)

"The data reviewed so far point toward an explanation of increased non-right handedness in autism arising as a consequence of generally poor motor functioning which results in a failure to learn the types of motor skills for which hand preference is normally shown. Lack of hand preference rather than stable left-handedness is what differentiates autistic from normal children. Neither pathological left-handedness nor a genetic predisposition towards decreased cerebral lateralization seem able to account for available data." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 113)

"Another possibility is that there may be developmental changes in language processing in autism: in this study, evidence of left hemisphere language functions was strongest in the older subjects." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 115)

"Interest in handedness in Rett syndrome was fuelled by a report by Nomura et al. (1984) who noted that out of 11 girls with the syndrome five were left-handed, one was right-handed and five had never been observed to show a preference. Handedness ceased to be apparent as children grew older and hand function declined so that the child could no longer grasp objects. Olsson and Rett (1986) studied handedness is 33 children with Rett syndrome. A range of toys and foods was presented, with hand preference being coded if one hand was used for grasping at least three times more often than the other. Olsson and Rett reported a striking difference between children aged above and below 7 years. For the younger group, there was a confirmation of the findings of Nomura et al., with nine out of the 14 girls using the left hand more than the right, one using the right more than the left, and the remainder showing no hand preference. However, for those aged above 7 years, only one out of the 12 preferred the left hand, whereas nine out of 12 preferred the right. These older children had evidence of asymmetical pathology affecting the upper limb, with the left side more abnormal than the right." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 116)

"In a mata-analysis of published data, Searlman et al. (1989) found that certain indices of birth stress (e.g. low birthweight, rhesus incompatibility, caesarian delivery) were associated with decreased right-handedness, but effects were tiny and only reached significance with the huge samples generated by combining data from many sources. The clearest evidence for a link between left-handedness and perinatal condition comes form studies of infants of extremely low birthweight. O'Callaghan et al. (1987) reported that 21 out of 39 children with birthweight below 1000g were left-handed at 4 years of age, compared with 8 per cent of other infants admitted to intensive care. None of the very low birthweight group had cerebral palsy. Ross it al. (1987) found that while 80 per cent of a full-term control group were right-handed, only 63 per cent of perterm children with very low birthweight were, this being a statistically significant difference. Furthermore, the two groups did not differ in the distributions of parental handedness. Only six children in this sample had asymmetry of body tone, but four of these were left-handed. In addition, within the preterm group, the non-right-handed children had significantly lower IQ's impaired expressive language and a higher frequency of articulation defects relative to right-handed children. Although this study appears to provide strong support for the notion that very preterm children are vulnerable to brain damage affecting handedness, it should be noted that not only was left-handedness more frequent in this sample, but so too was mixed handedness." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 90-1)

"Furthermore, those left-handers with poor non-preferred hand scores had fewer left-handed relatives than other left-handers. In general, children with poor scores of the non-preferred hand were more likely to have had a history of neurological impairment, and obtained lower scores on tests of intellectual function, than did other children." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 98)

"By fitting the model shown in Figure 7.5 to data obtained with this large sample, it was estimated that it follows that around one in 20 of all left-handers are pathological left-handers, and just over one-third of left-handers with very poor non-preferred hand skill are pathological left-handers. This study indicated that it is not implausible to postulate that an increase in left-handedness due to pathological influences may be found even in populations where frank neuromotor abnormality is not evident. ... We need to develop better ways of distingishing pathological from non-patholgical left-handers. Familial sinistrality, the most widely used index, yields such a high rate of misclassification as to make it worthless. Hypotrophy on one limb, strength of hand preference and poor motor skill of one side are all promising indices." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 100)

"Furthermore, where a distinction has been made between mixed- and left-handedness, it is clear that in general it is lack of hand preference rather than left-handedness that is particularly common in mentally handicapped people (Dart 1938, Porac et al. 1980)." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 106)

"Teng et al. (1976) pointed out that cases of pathological left-handedness will constitute a higher proportion of the population of all left-handers in countries such as China where there is strong social pressure to be right-handed. They found that twinning was associated with both decreased right-handedness and reduced college entrance is a large Taiwanese population, which is consistent withthe view that there is an excess of left-handedness among twins due to the influence of pathological factors. This suggests that if we could find some independent way of discriminating between pathological and natural left-handers in Wesern cultures (see p.95), we might be able to obtain clearer evidence for different distributions of handedness in twins and singletons. However, against this view is Annett's (1985) finding of a significant excess of left-handers among twins as compared to singletons even when probable pathological left-handers (those scoring more than two standard deviations below the mean on a test of manual dexterity) were excluded from consideration." (Bishop, D.V.M. (1990) Handedness and Developmental Disorder. MacKeith, Manchester pp. 36)

[AmbiDexDude]

Originally Posted by Fasthummingbird

Have you found anything about the color of hair and color of eyes, pertaining to autisum or AD/HD

I had an uncle (my dads brother) that was autistic, very blond hair when he was young, darken as he aged, very blue eyes, my dad has been blond most of his life, he now has very white hair, eyes blue, undignosed AD/HD, but I know, because of my AD/HD

I'm AD/HD, very blond hair when young, has darken as I'ved aged, very blue eyes, I have 4 children, three are blonds and still blonds as they have aged, 2 with blue eyes, 1 with green, 1 with dark hair and blue eyes, the blonds are undignosed AD/HD, but as a AD/HD mother I KNOW, the dark haired one has know problems

ditto for two of my three sisters, one sister has three sons, 2 blue eyed, blonds, AD/HD, 1 dark haired, brown eyes, know problem

the youngest of the four of us died when she was eighteen months, very blond and blue eyes, looking back, she was very AD/HD

1 sister born brown hair, green eyes, has know problems, she has 2 children, both very blond and blue eyes, 1 has aspergers and 1 is AD/HD

our mother was born, brown hair ,green eyes and know problems

there are alot of blue eyed ,blonds on both sides of the families and they (all) show signs of AD/HD, and four of them have been dignosed with aspergers

where I worked you could see alot of AD/HD in people, when I asked the ones I thought had AD/HD what color their was when they were born, blond with blue or green eyes, there hair had darken

I just know so many people that could be AD/HD, that had or have blond hair, blue or green eyes, I just can't help but wonder if there is a connection, that's why I'm asking

anyone have thoughts on this ?

Oh! there are leftys also

Hi!!! I am 22, male, was diagnosed with ADD barelly a year ago. Also tons of language disorders. I was born with blonde hair and it darkened as I aged!!!! (It is now very dark brown, it does lighten sometimes, but not much) Holly coincidence batman, I always wondered why that happened. I have those deep blue eyes as well, all my siblings have blue eyes, we have a history on both sides(parents) of behavioral problems, it seems I got most of them, if not all. I have 3 sisters, 2 are older, both have brown hair, and 1 younger sister with dark brown hair. My mother has light brown hair that was blonde most of her life (so that doesn't count), and greenish blue eyes; my dad has/had black hair and blue eyes. Interestingly enough my Mother's father had RED hair... weird, oh yeah and he was a genious, lol. He was very quirky too. My mother's mother definatelly had horrible OCD, which my mom got the anxiety part, aswell as otherthings she won't admit, I think she had ADHD when young, she agrees, the hyperactivity has fizzled but she can still jab on for ever. I consider my dad a genious, lots of great people from his line too.
Oh yeah, everyone on my mothers side is musical, I sing, play guitar; played others for short time aswell (ADD gave up on those, lol). All 3 sisters can sing beautifuly, as well as my mom and BOTH her sisters(older) the eldest plays guitar and has writen songs. My mom as well plays rhythm guitar. My dad is tone deaf but he's not completelly without good sound quality atleast. There is even a great deal of musical people on his side. My eldest sister playd flute and piano, next one played piano(shortly) and then payed violin and was great, she had a LOT of issues(Pipolar-Disorder) but is extremelly intelligent, she also paints, very artistic. My younger sister I'm not sure about, she just turned 18, I just noticed how much her earliy handwriting looks freakishly identical to mine(never changed) and she had a lot of the same characteristics of ADD, but i dono, she's organized, very organized, one thing i'm not at all. I dono, she definatelly has it close, but it's never hindered her schooling. She didn't get any of the procrastination, erggg, and had no reading problems... lol.

As you see by my username, lol, I was somewhat making a joke... I was at the same time saying I'm Ambidextrous as well as A....D....D.... get it?
I believe that I have true ambidexterity, not just believe, I know I do. It is weirder and an even crazier realization that when i was diagnosed with ADD. I only figured this out a month ago... I've always assumed I was right handed, and have been always living as such. I have been exteemelly clumbsy most of my life, stuttered horribly; still do rarelly (pet peve phrase: "just spit it out") ugh; I've always thought my body as well as my left hand was retarded. I've always thought I was stupid, not untill recently have I realized how smart I might actually be. I have always been 100% inable to make a decision, and never 'cared' to. I'm stubborn, but patient, a good listner but have have understanding problems, love music(passion) but have hearing loss, love art and drawing, but have always felt stupid, and could never think up out of my mind what to draw so I quit.

How did I figure out I am Ambidextrous? I have never been able to get my self to learn to juggle, and I have always wanted to. 2 months ago I FINALLY got it, took 3 days at night for 4 hours, once I got it I just kept getting better and better. I started noticing my left hand started to feel weird, it would almost move without me thinking about it (this is not alien hand syndrome). I realized that my hand just 'felt' exactly like my right. I can litterally only look at my right hand than switch and neither feel different when I look at them. They move symetrically, mirrored if you will. After living 22 years as a right handed person with a retarted left hand and then the next day you can catch anything thrown at you with it, you have to think something is weird. It really hit me that I was ambidextrous when one day without even noticing AT ALL, I was eating a piza slice (standing up) and drinking out of a can. I looked down at my hands... The can was in my left hand, the pizza in my right. I had been drinking with my left hand for 15 minutes and didn't notice.... I coudln't believe it. I have never been able to do such things with my left hand, Or at least that I remmbered at that time. Any and every sport I've played I have played right-handed, with the only exception being hockey, it just happened by accident. I rember it very vividly, it was like 5th grade, and in gym we were gonna play 'hokey' woth those foamed sticks. I remember looking across the gym before picking up a sick, looking to see how I was supposed to hold it. Saw someone, facing toward me, stick toward my left. I guess I picked the stick up and had it facing left, and from then on I could only play left handed. Some how I play baseball and golf righthanded, weird huh? Well along the years I noticed I could switch hit in baseball, I can also put just as acuratelly maybe more with my left hand. The next morning after the can incident I wanted to test some things out, not even trying I could already throw a frisbee left-handed (never worked before), and can throw too simultaneously, and just as acurate. Since then I havent found a single thing I can't do with eitherhand, or foot, I can kick anything just aswell, I can even throw a baseball the same! It's freaky, uncannny. My left hand doesn't feel weird anymore, and especially not retarded. The next sure thing was trying to play guitar left handed, now I figured it wasn't possible. I have played guitar for 5 years now, I restrung an old guitar reverse, and tried to play, atfirst it felt weird, but not too weird. There was not one chord my right hand wouldn't go immediatelly to. and my left would even strum. Strange, strange. I had earlier in the week searched and search for ambidextrous info, then came across thsi guys named 'Michael Angelo Batio.' He is alive, and kickin, He is probably the fastest guitar player ever, guess what? He is Ambidextrous, as well as the first person to design a 'double guitar' and sucsessfully play/perform with it. He is beyond amazing. his site is angelo.com

Anyway, once I figured out I could play left-handed, I thought why not try two at once... really uncomfortable but I can move each hande simultaneously to the same chords without even thinking, ofcourse I couldn't really play, with them being acoustics especially. I coudln't believe it, more craziness!!! I'm still even sceptical... but i'm not dumb enough to go and doubt myself. I can now do everything and anything with either side of my body, and comfortably. I can use knives just as well with either, also eat, pour, anything like that. The first time I tried writing with my left hand I figure out I could write completelly opposite of my right (upside down and mirrord, and do this simultaneously while writing normal with my right hand). After doing it for fun a little everyonece in a a while I can now write pretty normally, but slowly, however I can write mirroed with my left just as fast as normal... I can also write simultaneously with right and left, right writing normal, left mirrored. My left hand writing, sadly, is not better than my right hand writing, which is sad, really hoped for better handwriting.You can literally ask me to do anything with either and I can mostlikelly do it. Another thing that confirmed to me about this is... after 7 years of not drawing anything I tried it again, I realized I used to switch back and forth when I drew as a kid, and did that night, I was astonished at how well I could stil draw. It was so much fun.

I'm gonna stop there, I have much more to say, but it's not real important. I hope you respond soon. the whole hair this is very interesting. Ok well, anyquestiuons, please ask. Any advice please ask aswell.

[BananaSlip]

The similar minds website is very cool. Great IQ tests!

[qinkin]

b4 kindergarten-and during kindergarten- I switched between writing with my left and right hand. Could this be due to an underdeveloped brain? Many autistics are ambidextrous-possibly due to an underdeveloped brain.

[tweedle]

Would this possibly included other AS disorders??

I have 8 children.. 6 are right-handed 2 are left handed.. both DH and I are right handed and noone in either of our families is left handed.

the 2 that are left handed.. one is under investigation for AS and the other has dyslexia/dyspraxia/ADD/short term memory dysfunction.

Interesting theory, I have actually considered this myself before.

xx

[Nesslee]

Hi,

I've heard about this before myself, and what I got out of it is.....not all people who are lefties or even ambidextrous have learning disabilities, but, an overwhelming majority of those who do have some kind of a learning disability, whether it be autism, ADD/ADHD, dislexia, or anything else like that often are either left handed or ambidextrous.

My son who has autism, showed a left handed preference in early childhood, and now appears to be ambidextrous, with dominance in the left hand.
I am ambidextrous, dominant righty in writing, but dominant lefty in everything else. (though I can write fairly neat and legibly with my left hand).
A friend of mine back home is dislexic, she's a dominant lefty, all the way. But now my nephew is a lefty w/o having any learning disability. So I guess, it's a matter of opinion. That is what I've seen in the people that I know. Now my brother whom I believe has ADHD (he was diagnosed as being hyperactive back in 1969) is a dominant righty. There's exceptions to every rule.

I asked my son's teacher if he's noticed what hand my son uses, (to campare w/my observations) and he said he appears to be ambidextrous, w/the dominant side being left. I said that's what I've noticed too. (but he writes with his right hand, like me)

I would like to ask a crazy question here.......as far as handedness, have you ever noticed that people who are dominant lefties or righties often will show early preference in childhood. Watch them put on a pair of pants, socks, shoes, or even when they put on a long sleeved shirt or a jacket.

Whatever the dominance will show in which, hand, arm, leg or foot they use first. I've noticed my son will step in his pants, left leg first, left foot for socks, shoes or boots, and left arm for his jacket.
With me, it's the right side, mainly cause I use my right hand to write with, so, the right side goes in first.
But to catch a frisbee, ball, I can catch, throw, or even bowl with my left. I'll bet a large percentage of people (regardless of their handedness) really aren't even aware of which side they put in first, when getting dressed.
Ask around, you'll see many people will say.....I NEVER PAID ATTENTION TO THAT.... soo few people do. Maybe just us ADDers do. Anyway, that is my opinion.

Nesslee

[polyrhythmia]

Originally Posted by Imnapl

My brother and my son are both ambidextrous; both are ADHD, but not Autistic.

From what I have heard, people can either have a right-bias gene or not. If not, they can either be right- or left-handed, whereas those with strong right bias have just one good hand, and the left one just kind of hangs there. I myself am PDD-NOS and I am left-handed in many things, but right-handed in others. My right eye is dominant, my left face is dominant, and I tend to use the left hand for tasks requiring strength. I originally wrote with the left hand, but decided I was going to learn to write with the right hand. It took many years to get the hang of using the right hand that way, but now I am better with the right hand. On the other hand, so to speak, I am against forcing use of the right hand. Being able to use either hand proficiently in many tasks is useful. Dave...

[speedo]

I once read a study on fossil arthropods (shellfish). In that study the authors noted that the arthropods tended to have injuries from predators on the left side of their heads, and rarely on the right side.

The researchers conclusion was that the arthropods were right handed and tended to turn to the right when attacked head-on, and were thus more likely to sustain injury to the left side.


ME