How to determine whether a child is right-handed or left-handed: accurate tests to check

According to statistics, every tenth person in the world is left-handed. Left-handers are distinguished by high imaginative thinking, sensitivity and vulnerability.

Psychologists strongly recommend not to retrain left-handed children, but to take into account their distinctive features when raising them.

How do you know if your baby is left-handed or right-handed?

Determining the leading hand

Even at a young age, fathers and mothers can note which hand the baby prefers. For example, a baby more often manipulates objects with the main handle - sucks a fist, grabs and holds toys, a bottle, a pacifier. By the age of two, you can already talk about a developed habit.

• Drawing. Ask your child to draw a picture. Don't rush him, let him draw at his usual pace. After finishing the work, offer to draw the same thing, but with a different pen. If your child refuses, say: “I understand that this is difficult, but I’m sure you can handle it.” The drawing made by the main hand is more pleasant to look at, more proportional, without “shaky” lines.
• Matchbox. Place three or four empty boxes in front of your child and ask him to find the “secret” in one of them. If there is an ordinary match, do not forget to break off the end with sulfur! The main hand pushes the inside of the boxes out and in.
• We are building a figure. Place counting sticks in the center of the table and invite your child to build a house. A left-handed person uses his left hand more often and more actively.
• Ball game. To complete this test, prepare a tennis ball or other small ball that your child can throw and catch with the palm of one hand. Ask your child to take the ball and throw it to you with one hand.
• Silhouette cutting. Find a postcard with a silhouette image (a flower, a bear) and ask your child to cut out this figure with scissors. The main handle will be considered the one that performs more active movements. For example, a child took the scissors with his right hand, but prefers to twist the card with his left hand around the stationary scissors. In this case, you can assume that his active hand is his left, although the scissors were taken with his right.
• Stringing beads. You will need a thin cord or fishing line and large beads. We look not at which hand took the cord, but at which handle performs most of the actions.
• Opening bottles. Have your child open 2-3 bottles or bottles with screw caps. The main thing is a more active hand. For example, if a child holds the lid with his right hand, and took the bottle in his left, but at the same time rotates not the lid itself, but the bottle, then the leading hand is the left, not the right.
• Untying knots. Prepare a lace of medium thickness with several knots tied. They should be loose and simply come undone. The dominant hand is the one that unties the knots.
• Fold the pattern according to the sample. The material for the task can be a mosaic, construction sets or a puzzle. The main hand takes the details and corrects the resulting pattern.
• Do you have left-handed people in your family? Just answer: yes or no.

If, when performing seven or more tasks (plus the question of left-handed relatives), the child used his left hand, then with a high degree of probability we can talk about his left-handedness. You can get a more accurate result by contacting a psychologist.

Left-handed children differ from right-handed children:

• predominance of imaginative thinking;
• a penchant for creativity;
• increased emotionality and vulnerability;
• impulsiveness.

Preparing a left-handed person for school

As teachers and parents are well aware, left-handed children experience special problems when writing. To learn to write, he needs to adapt to the poor grip of his fingers on pencils or pens. In addition, the written text is covered by the hand, which leads to numerous blots.

In order to teach a little left-hander to write beautifully and, most importantly, accurately, follow several important rules:

• When studying, use triangular writing instruments that provide a comfortable grip with your thumb, index and middle fingers. You can purchase a special pencil pad for left-handed children;
• when writing, turn the notebook or album so that it is parallel to your left forearm;
• choose soft pencils that leave a clear mark on the sheet, and pens that glide easily across the paper.

Of course, the training and development of a left-handed child will require patience from adults. Remember that you should not retrain a left-handed child, just as you should not focus on his “unusuality.” Since left-handed children are more vulnerable, do not dramatize failures, but, on the contrary, rejoice more at their successes and achievements.

Excursion into physiology

The brain of every person consists of two cerebral hemispheres. The right hemisphere contains nerve centers that control the left half of the body, while the left hemisphere controls the right half. From birth, one of the cerebral hemispheres is more developed in a baby. If priority is given to the right hemisphere, then the child becomes left-handed. And, on the contrary, with a pronounced predominance of the left hemisphere, the baby grows to be right-handed. It is not possible to predict which part of the brain will become dominant.

According to statistics, up to 15% of the entire world population are true left-handers. Among them are those who were forcibly retrained in childhood, and those who remained left-handed for the rest of their lives. About 1% of all people are ambidextrous. These people are equally good with both their right and left hands. The rest of the world's population is right-handed.

Right-handedness is a phenomenon that will surprise no one. Parents of little left-handers have many more questions. Why does a child take a toy in his left hand instead of holding it with his right? There is no clear answer to this question. It has been proven that left-handedness is inherited. If left-handers have already been born in your family, there is a very high probability that your baby will begin to do everything with his left hand.

Other possible causes of left-handedness include brain injuries. If the left hemisphere is damaged, the right side of the brain takes over all the functions of the damaged area, and the child becomes left-handed. A similar situation occurs with a long-term injury to the right hand. It is also noticed that one of the twins often becomes left-handed, while the second remains right-handed.

Useful tips

Left-handedness and right-handedness depend on the conditions under which the nervous system was formed. Genetic predisposition also plays an important role here. The family must take into account the characteristics of the individual development of such children. It will be very good if at least one of the parents is also left-handed.

Experts have noticed that left-handers are most often born to thin women and women over 40 years of age. Frequent stress during pregnancy can also lead to this effect.

It is important to teach a child spatial orientation, because some left-handers copy objects in mirror images. Do not make too much demands on such children, because they are overly vulnerable, and too much stress can be a serious test for them. The only effect you will achieve by doing this is a complete lack of desire to learn.

How to determine the leading side?

The problem of left-handed adaptation would be much easier to solve if there were methods for identifying left-handed children at a very early age. But until the age of 3, every child is ambidexter by nature. He is equally comfortable doing familiar things with both his left and right hands. This phenomenon is associated with the peculiarities of brain development and does not require any special correction at this age.

You can try to find out whether your child is right-handed or left-handed at an earlier age. But any test performed on a child under 3 years old cannot be the basis for a final “diagnosis.” The leading hand can be clearly determined after 4-5 years. At this age, connections between the hemispheres of the brain and the child’s body are completely formed, and finding out whether your baby is right-handed or left-handed will not be difficult.

The test to determine the dominant hand in an infant is quite simple. It is known that at about 3 months of age the basic reflexes of non-born babies disappear. The disappearance of reflexes occurs at different times on the right and left sides. A child who will become left-handed in the future will quickly lose these reflexes on the left side. By observing your baby, already at the age of 3-4 months you will be able to tell exactly which hand will be his dominant one a few years later.

Left-handed child: developmental features of boys and girls

Although the development of such children proceeds within normal limits, they are still slightly different from right-handed children in some ways :

1. Your child may be hyperactive and have difficulty sitting still in class. Most often, this feature manifests itself in a left-handed boy.
2. Speech develops more slowly, but at a certain stage it quickly catches up with other peers.
3. Sometimes difficulties with pronunciation may arise, but if this is noticed in a timely manner, the problem can be corrected by a speech therapist.
4. Often such schoolchildren have difficulties with the humanities, but they can easily understand mathematics, chemistry, physics, etc.
5. These children have excellent hearing and have the ability to play musical instruments. They also have good inclinations towards art and other creative hobbies. A left-handed girl child may have good dancing or singing abilities.
6. There may be difficulties with orientation in space when the baby confuses “up and down”, “right and left”.
7. Right-hemisphere children can simultaneously develop both hands, while left-hemisphere children find this much more difficult.

Musical abilities
particular differences in the behavior of right-hemisphere children of different sexes. They are almost equally emotional, have similar inclinations, and stand out from other guys in their own way. But still, if the girl is a left-handed child, some features may be noticeable in her character:

• vulnerability, sensitivity to the words and actions of others;
• fatigue;
• touchiness;
• predisposition to experience.

Nevertheless, these qualities are often found in the opposite sex, so we can safely say that the developmental features and character traits of a left-handed girl child are almost no different.

Experts assure that it is not worth retraining a right-hemisphere child, as this can lead to serious psychological disorders

Tests to determine the dominant hand

Each test is designed for children aged 4-5 years. It is at this age that you can quite accurately determine whether your child is left-handed or right-handed. You can check your baby at home, without being distracted from play or communication. While taking the test, the child will have to complete simple tasks, and his parents will have to track which hand the baby does certain things with. By the predominance of one or another hand, you can calculate which one is the dominant one for your child.

Test for preschoolers:

• cut paper with scissors;
• erase the drawing with an eraser;
• string beads onto a thread;
• lay out the cards on the table;
• pour water from one container to another;
• take the glass in your hands;
• open and close the lock;
• wind the thread onto the spool;
• get a book from the shelf;
• push the ball with your hand;
• ring the bell;
• brush your teeth;
• remove a small object from a glass with a spoon;
• open a bottle with a screw cap.

There is also a test for older children.

• Ask your child to interlace their fingers into a lock. A left-handed person will leave the thumb of his left hand on top, and a right-handed person will leave his right thumb on top.
• Invite your child to clap their hands. The leading hand will be on top.
• Ask your child to cross their arms in front of them. The dominant hand will again be on top.

Any test can be chosen for a child. You can use several tasks at once to determine your baby’s dominant hand. When choosing this or that exercise, you should give preference to actions that are unfamiliar to the child. The thing is that when parents teach their baby to hold a mug, spoon or pencil, they place the object in their right hand. Thus, parents, unwittingly, retrain their little one to be left-handed. The test assumes that the child will do the tasks unconsciously. When performing an action that is unusual for him, the baby, without noticing it, will give priority to his leading hand and thereby make it clear whether he is left-handed or right-handed.

Advice

Conduct tests with your child one-on-one in a calm and friendly environment.

An important point: when taking the test, the child must have equal access to all objects on the left and right sides. Mugs, pencils, threads - all this should be at the same distance from both hands. Otherwise, the baby will reach where it is closer to him, and the test will be passed incorrectly.

Any test is carried out with the child in the form of a game. You should not focus your baby’s attention on the fact that you are testing him. Let all tasks be completed easily and naturally. If the baby is not in the mood to play, you should postpone the test until next time.

Causes of the phenomenon

According to statistics, 8-17% of the planet are born right-brained (about every seventh baby). This feature is not considered any pathology at all and does not negatively affect the development of the baby. There are mainly three reasons for this phenomenon:

1. Genetic factor (the characteristic is passed on to the child through DNA).
2. Traumatic factor (during childbirth, injuries to the right hemisphere may occur, due to which the left hemisphere will develop more strongly).
3. External factor (the baby could have injured his right hand, and because of it he began to use his left more, etc.).

Left-handed child

How to determine if a child is left-handed

The first signs can be seen already when the baby begins to use objects independently: pick up toys, hold a spoon, brush his teeth, draw with a pencil, etc. More precisely, laterality (choice of the main hand) is determined in the period from 3 to 6 years. In addition, you can observe how the child claps his hands (which hand is on top), which side he leans on when falling, etc. There are also those children who can use both hands equally at once.

Left-handedness is observed much more often among boys than among girls.

Your child is left-handed

What to do if your baby turns out to be left-handed? In former times, it was believed that it was necessary to get rid of such a condition. Lefties were retrained, creating many problems for the little man. Modern pediatricians and psychologists do not share this point of view. Experts believe that being left-handed is a variant of the norm. There is no point in retraining a child and breaking his true nature in favor of the social norms of the last century.

Once you find out that your baby is left-handed, do not rush to retrain him. Even if a child gets used to doing everything with his right hand, he will spend much more time and effort on this than his peers. In retrained left-handers, the right side of the brain is still dominant, and all actions pass through the right hemisphere. As a result, large resources of the body are spent on performing a simple action. Is it not for this reason that left-handed people, following their nature, often outstrip their retrained peers in development?

Left hand dominance can undoubtedly create certain difficulties in a child’s adaptation to the world around him. All devices on this planet, from the simplest household appliances to complex technology, are designed for right-handers. If your baby is left-handed, he will have to get used to living in conditions that are not very comfortable for him. Fortunately, many things have now been created for left-handed people that make life much easier in a right-handed world. Is it worth retraining a child if it is possible to create quite comfortable conditions for his existence?