What is the difference between a left-hander and a right-hander: features, interesting facts, recommendations. Right-handed or left-handed? How it affects health Separation of functions between the hemispheres

In the scientific community, there is a hypothesis that in the very ancient times of the Stone Age, the ratio of people performing the main actions with the right hand (right-handers) and the left hand (left-handers) was the same. In the animal world, for example, this ratio is the same today.

However, in the process of human development, the right hand gradually became the main hand for most people, in the Bronze Age, for example, only one third of all people were left-handed. And how many percent of left-handers in the world today?

Various statistical sources indicate that in our time there are 10-17 percent of left-handers in the world.

At the same time, it is not necessary that a left-hander does everything with his left hand, for example, he can write with his left hand, because at school he was forced to learn this. But the left-hander still prefers to do most of the actions with his left hand.

If we say how many percent of left-handers in the world are among men and women separately, then among men there are noticeably more of them. And if you ask about the distribution of left-handers "by countries and continents", then their largest percentage is in the countries of South, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe.

Between 75% and 90% of the world's population are right-handed. But if you're left-handed, you're not alone in this right-handed world. Billions of people live on the globe. So there are hundreds of millions of lefties out there! What makes a person left-handed or right-handed?

It is known that the tendency to use predominantly the right or left hand is determined genetically, but so far scientists have not been able to find out which gene is involved in this process.

You can also become left-handed as a result of an injury. For example, if a right-hander injures his right hand, then he is forced to use his left. The same principle works in reverse as well. If you wish, you can independently decide which hand you want to use and develop it. For example, some parents may retrain their child to write with their left hand. Is it true that lefties are more creative people?

No that's not true. Rembrandt and Van Gogh are two good examples. What gave rise to this theory? We know that all people have a brain divided into two hemispheres - right and left. The right hemisphere controls movement on the left side of the body, which includes left hand. The left hemisphere controls movements on the right side. Creative activities such as writing a song or painting a picture originate mainly on the left side of the brain. So if you are left-handed, then the theory is that you are most likely a very creative person. But the thought processes in your brain are too complex and are not limited to just one hemisphere. When you think, both hemispheres work at the same time. And just because you like to use your left hand doesn't mean you only think with one side of your brain.

Are you comfortable living in a right-handed world?

Some products, such as scissors, are designed to fit comfortably in your hand. Since most people are right-handed, these products are designed to be used by someone's right hand. Left-handers, of course, can learn to use either the right hand or hold the same “right-handed” instruments with the left hand, but this leads to constant discomfort. Luckily, many companies are now making special products targeted at left-handed people. Such goods include not only the most necessary things, such as scissors, writing tools and sports equipment, but even musical instruments.

One place where left-handers may need extra help for convenience is school. For example, many desks are designed for right-handers and leave no room for the left-hander to rest their hands in the field of long work. Unfortunately, if a child has a problem with school equipment, it is up to the parents to solve it. This includes both the purchase of pens and notebooks, as well as desks.

Handwriting can be a big problem, because as a left-handed child learns to write, he often brushes against an already written line, thereby smearing ink on the page or chalk on the blackboard.

Learning to write will be easier if you:

Avoid notebooks with a left spiral.

Buy notepads with tear-off pages or spirals at the top.

Try to find a special left-handed pen, or at least a non-marking pen. So when you write, you don't make dirt on the page. If possible, use a pencil.

Lefties in sports.

It's true that lefties excel in sports. Despite the fact that left-handers face some difficulties, they get a real advantage on the playing field. In baseball or football, a left-handed hitter stands a few steps closer to first base, giving him a better chance of winning.

In basketball and other sports, a left-handed player can easily surprise an opponent by changing his strategy. For example, a left-handed basketball player will use his left hand and approach the basket from the left side. With such an advantage, it's no surprise that some super athletes were left-handed. Athletes there include baseball player Ted Williams and tennis star Rafael Nadalya. Also, scientist Albert Einstein, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and cartoon character Bart Simpson were also left-handed. In other words, if you're left-handed, you're in good company!

Reviewed by: Charles B. Brill, MD Date of review: September 2012

As a lefty, I have always felt a little "different". Often I struggled trying to "fit into the right-handed world." Imagine, when I was at school, I had to constantly control myself so that I could write normally, eat normally, without pushing a person sitting next to me, even at home, most household items (openers, secateurs) are made for right-handers.

I often wondered, am I really that unique? Approximately 10 percent of the population is left-handed, and that's almost 30 million people in the US alone, so being left-handed isn't as uncommon as I thought. In addition to feeling different from others, I get the feeling that even history hides discrimination against left-handed people:

Some common English phrases personify "left" as a negative quality - for example - In many European languages, the word "right" is not only a synonym for correctness, but is also used as "power" and "justice": in German Dutch - recht (right, legal, legal) , in French - droit (straight, right, legal), in Spanish - derecho (right, legal); in most Slavic languages, the root "rights" is used in words that carry the meaning of correctness and justice. Historically, being right-handed also means "to be skilled, skillful, dexterous": the Latin word "dexter" ("right") designates a right-handed person as dexterous; The Spanish term "diestro" has two meanings: "right-handed" and "skilled". In Irish "deas" means " right side" and "good", and the word "Ciotog", the left hand, is related to the word "ciotach", "clumsy, awkward, uncomfortable."

The English word "sinister" ("sinister") comes from the Latin "sinister, -tra, -trum". It originally meant "left, left-sided", and then, in the Classical Latin century, took on the meaning of "evil, evil" and "unfortunate, unfortunate". At the same time, the word "sinister" ("sinister") comes from the Latin word "sinus", meaning "pocket": the traditional Roman toga had only one pocket, designed for right-handed people and located on the left side for ease of use. The modern Italian word "sinistra" has two meanings: sinister and left. The Spanish "siniestra" also has two meanings, although its meaning "left" is rarely used - the Basque word "izquierda" (in Basque - esker) is usually used for this. The German word "links" means "to the left", the adjective "link" means "cunningly, slyly, furtively, roundabout", and the verb "linken" means "to deceive". (Wikipedia)

One of the things I've also heard all my life is that I'm clumsy and completely lacking in coordination. But as I found out, this probably has nothing to do with a defect in my natural abilities, but rather that I have to use right-handed tools that look backwards to me.

With all the negativity surrounding us, it's hard not to feel a little left out, but there are a lot of great things about being left-handed, statistically speaking: Being left-handed has an advantage in many sports.

Left-handed people are more likely to be geniuses - or have high IQs. Left-handed men make more money than right-handed men. Lefties see better underwater. As a general rule, left-handers are better at playing video games than right-handers. Left-handers are easier to tolerate and recover from a stroke than right-handers. Left-handed drivers are more successful at learning to drive than right-handers.

For a long time, the ability of some people to use their left hand in situations where the majority uses their right has attracted attention and caused much controversy. In the dark Middle Ages, left-handers were considered minions of evil spirits and were burned at the stake. In the 20th century, until the 80s, they tried to retrain left-handed children and turn them into right-handers.

In many languages, the word "right" means "correct", and "left" - "false", "false". Some experts who were interested in the problem of left-handedness, including the Italian psychiatrist Cesare Lombroso, tried to prove that left-handedness is a deviation, which, in particular, is characteristic of mentally handicapped criminals. Such a negative attitude could not but cause protest in society and attempts to prove that being left-handed is not at all bad, but, on the contrary, very good. Recently, it has been customary to “prove” the special giftedness of left-handers by finding them among famous personalities. For the sake of truth, it should be noted that for some reason no one is looking for famous right-handed people. Probably no one is interested.

Who are lefties?

All over the world, a left-handed person is called a person whose left hand is more dexterous than the right (nothing more). There are about 10% of such people in the population. Among people you can find pure left-handers, pure right-handers and mixed variants. Mixed left-handed / right-handed people are either ambidexters, who can perform any actions with both the right and left hands with the same effect, and “two-handed”, which perform some actions (for example, writing, using a spoon and scissors) with the right hand, while others (for example , hammering nails, threading the eye of a needle) - left.

In the 70-80s of the last century, a whole scientific "boom" broke out, pursuing the goal of finding out how left-handers differ from right-handers. Some researchers found lefties more creative, creative, musically and mathematically gifted. Another part argued that among left-handers there is a high percentage of people with mental developmental disabilities (mental retardation and learning difficulties) and neuropsychiatric diseases, such as schizophrenia and epilepsy. There have also been attempts to argue that the brain of left-handers differs from the brain of right-handers in that in left-handers, the right hemisphere is dominant, more active (in some versions, both hemispheres and they are more closely related to each other). Differences in the activity of the brain and tried to explain the greater giftedness, intelligence and creativity of left-handers.

Modern research, having significantly greater material equipment and the ability to study huge masses of people (including with the help of social networks), unfortunately does not confirm earlier conclusions. Neither in behavior, nor in mental abilities, nor in the frequency of occurrence of various diseases and deviations, left-handers do not differ from right-handers. The only advantage left-handers have is in some sports, such as boxing, tennis, and even then for a completely banal reason - athletes are trained to fight a right-handed opponent, simply because there are so many more right-handers.

Interestingly, scientists were able to find some differences when comparing pure left-handers and right-handers with mixed options. It turns out that pure left-handers and right-handers are more authoritarian and egocentric, while “mixed” ones are more prone to magical thinking (they believe in myths, omens, horoscopes, sorcerers, etc.) and are more creative.

The brain of left-handers differs little from the brain of right-handers both in its structure and function. This is revealed thanks to modern methods research, such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, which allows you to study the work of the brain in the process of solving various problems. The control of the dominant hand in most lefties is really carried out by the right hemisphere (and in righties - by the left), but this truth is not absolute. So, for example, in some pathological conditions (in particular, after a stroke in the motor cortex), control over hand movements can be transferred to the opposite hemisphere. The "speech" of the majority (60%) of left-handers, as well as of right-handers, is the left hemisphere, and only 10% - the right. It is even more difficult to talk about the brain organization in left-handers of other functions, such as perception, memory, etc. Therefore, by the dominant hand (as well as by the dominant eye and ear) one cannot judge how the human brain is functionally organized. The myth of the so-called "hidden left-handedness" that some psychologists find in a number of children is just a myth. With its help, they try to explain the features of the development of the child and often, as a result, ignore real problems and real ways to solve them.

Where does left-handedness come from?

Many researchers are looking for an explanation in heredity. It is shown that if the parents of the child are left-handed, then the probability that he will also be left-handed is higher (21.4-27%) than in cases where both parents are right-handed (8.5-10.4%). However, there is no 100% probability either there or there. Left-handed mothers have left-handed children more often than left-handed fathers, and there are slightly more left-handed boys than girls. One of the most significant arguments in favor of the genetic origin of left-handedness is the very early manifestation of the dominant hand. Already 10-week-old fetuses suck mainly on the right or left finger, and after birth, the chosen hand is often the leading one. However, there are also counterarguments. One of them (and a very strong one) is the frequent occurrence (18%) among identical twins of differences in the dominant hand (one is right-handed and the other is left-handed).

The cultural aspect also plays a certain role. Retraining leads to the fact that the proportion of pure left-handers in society is declining.

They also continue to talk about the pathological aspect of left-handedness. It turns out that it can develop due to the influence of unfavorable factors on the child's body. These factors, in particular, include the unfavorable condition of the child immediately after birth (low Apgar score) and maternal smoking during pregnancy. Both are associated with an increased incidence of brain damage in the newborn.

How to determine if a child is left-handed or right-handed?

There are many methods by which a child's tendency to be right-handed or left-handed is determined. The so-called "activity" questionnaires are especially popular. The child is invited to perform a series of actions: draw, cut the paper with scissors, put the string through the hole, throw the ball, show how he eats soup with a spoon, how he combs his hair, brushes his teeth. The result is judged by the predominant use of the right or left hand in everyday activities. Another method is to assess hand dexterity. For this purpose, you can take, for example, a narrow pencil case in the form of an open box and a dozen pencils. First, the pencil case is placed to the right of the center, and the pencils are placed on the left on the table in front of the child and the child is asked to put the pencils into the pencil case one at a time as quickly as possible. Then the pencil case is placed on the left, and the pencils on the right, and they are asked to do the same with the left hand. Compare the speed and accuracy of the movements of the child's hands.

With the help of these simple tricks, you can guess which hand is better for teaching a child to write if he can’t decide on his own.

If parents have doubts about the origin of a child's left-handedness, whether it is associated with changes in the functioning of the brain, especially if he has learning problems or deviations in behavior, it is best to seek the advice of a neuropsychologist.

We all know that there are far fewer left-handed people in the world than right-handers, but not everyone knows how to reliably determine whether a person is left-handed or right-handed, what personality traits psychologists associate with these groups, and how reliable are the popular opinions about the specific nature of the right-handed person. and left hemispheric. It is these concepts, phenomena and processes that I decided to make the object of my research.

In this regard, in my work, I decided to consider the types of thinking from a somewhat unconventional angle - from the point of view of the right and left hemispheres. As a result, the topic of my research, at first glance, may not seem quite correct: psychologists usually associate convergence, divergence, logic, intuitiveness, introversion, extraversion and a number of other concepts with the types of thinking. However, from my point of view, the dominance of one of the hemispheres of the human brain has an influence on the formation of personality, character and temperament of a person, the depth of which is difficult to overestimate, and one of the goals of my study is to substantiate and prove this thesis.

Of the other tasks of my work, it should be noted the determination of the relationship between right-handers, left-handers and ambidexters, as well as the determination of the relationship between the functional asymmetry of the brain and some features of perception and reaction by testing.

From the history

On our planet, regardless of nationality and race, there are more right-handed people. It has always been so. The fixing of the function of speech for the left hemisphere, which is dominant in right-handed people, occurred as early as the Upper Paleolithic. On rock paintings made about 30 thousand years ago, hunters hold a spear or club in their right hand. The French scientist Jerry Levy explains this phenomenon by the principles natural selection: men have always played the role of hunters and leaders of migrations, and those of them who had good visual-spatial abilities (and psychology ascribes such properties mainly to right-handed people) had an advantage.

But humanity has never been exclusively right-handed. On ancient Greek vases, images of warriors are often found, who cover themselves with a shield with their right hand, and strike with their left. The army of Alexander the Great had a special "left division" - seven hundred selected left-handed soldiers.

In ancient times, left-handed people were considered "unclean". In Japan, a husband could divorce his wife if he found out she was left-handed. In the folklore of many nations and in the Bible, the word "left" means everything bad, and the word "right" means everything good. In English, the left is also "sinister", "bad", in French - "clumsy", "dishonest", in Italian - "defective", and in Russian - "poor quality".

In Italy, every child knows that the devil is left-handed. On the icons depicting the Last Judgment, the righteous stand to the right of the Savior, and the sinners to the left. Folk sayings and signs also speak of the traditional attitude towards left-handed people: “I got up on my left foot - the whole day will go awry”, “A mole on the left shoulder - you will remain an old maid”, if someone holds out his left hand to greet, it means that he dislikes, wants evil. There is a belief that black cat crosses the road exclusively from left to right.

In the Middle Ages, when hunting witches, left-handedness was associated with the devil. Perhaps the fact that Joan of Arc was left-handed helped the inquisitors sentence her to be burned at the stake. Emperor Peter the Great forbade crooked, red-haired and left-handed people to testify in court, "because God marks the rogue." And in the Soviet Union, left-handers were retrained until 1985.

But left-handedness was by no means always and not everywhere considered a defect. So, the ancient Egyptians considered it a good sign to enter the house on the left foot, the Aztecs performed kidney operations with the left hand, the ancient Incas believed that being left-handed is a great happiness, and the Eskimos still believe that every left-handed person is a sorcerer, which means a person, enjoying respect and numerous privileges.

In more modern examples, the left-handed Napoleon Bonaparte was depicted by his contemporary in the painting on horseback and holding a telescope to his left eye. When working on the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo drew with both hands - he, like US President James Garfield, who could write Latin with one hand and Greek with the other, was ambidexterous.

Neil Armstrong took his famous "one man's small step and all mankind's giant step" with his left foot. All candidates in the 1992 US presidential election - Bill Clinton, Ross Parot and George W. Bush - were left-handed.

Separation of functions between the hemispheres

Due to the structure of the brain, most people write, draw, turn the pages of a book, hold a telephone receiver, press buttons in an elevator, and so on with one hand, as a result of which we divide the world into right-handers and left-handers.

The aforementioned features of the structure of the brain lie in its functional asymmetry: the left hemisphere controls the contractions of the muscles of the right side of the body, and the right hemisphere controls the left.

In a simplified form, this phenomenon is characterized by the terms "right hemisphere" and "left hemisphere", denoting, respectively, right-handers and left-handers; the division of functions between the hemispheres was called functional asymmetry.

The study of the principles of "division of labor" between the cerebral hemispheres began in the middle of the 19th century on patients with focal brain lesions caused by hemorrhages and craniocerebral injuries. For example, in right-handers with damage to the right hemisphere, olfactory hallucinations, violation of figurative thinking, topographic memory; with damage to the left hemisphere, there was a violation of speech, consciousness, verbal memory; left-handers, on the other hand, had separate, only inherent syndromes - such as the state of twilight consciousness, specularity, skin-optical feeling, sleep disturbance with the subsequent development of endogenous depression and speech impairment (in 85% of cases), which was first established by the English scientist E. Brock.

Based on this, it is easy to assume that the tasks of the right and left hemispheres are different. Moreover, modern physicians can say with confidence that there is no such function for which both the right and left hemisphere would be responsible.

However, the researchers recorded the facts of "exchange" of functions between the hemispheres. In particular, the case of the British citizen Brian Berten, who was in a car accident, is widely known from the age of two months. The boy's left, severely injured hemisphere was removed and the most favorable conditions for development were created, after which, contrary to forecasts, he began to speak normally (that is, the remaining right hemisphere took over the functions of speech). Doctors and neurophysiologists have been following Brian for years. Five years after the operation, he had an IQ of 164 out of 200, and by the age of 26, Bertin graduated from the university with a degree.

But, according to scientists, this case should remain the exception, not the rule. It is believed that the cause of neuroticism in children, regardless of their functional asymmetry of the hemispheres, is a violation of interhemispheric interaction: blocking the activity of the leading hemisphere and overloading the less active hemisphere. A direct consequence of this are various neurotic disorders - hysteria, psychasthenia, schizophrenia, etc.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the study of functional asymmetry on healthy people. The identified asymmetries were divided into three main types: mental, motor and sensory.

Motor asymmetry - asymmetry in the functioning of the legs, arms, facial muscles. For example, in right-handers, the left hand is more enduring than the right to static effort; the muscles of the left side of the face are stronger than the right side, as a result, the left half of the face seems more masculine.

Sensory asymmetry is an asymmetry in the functioning of the sense organs. Distinguish the asymmetry of the organs of vision, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Information perceived by sensory systems enters the right and left hemispheres, and its processing and storage takes place in the hemisphere adapted to this species information.

The most pronounced asymmetry of the functioning of the organs of vision and hearing. It is known that the dominant eye is the first to “catch” the object, so its accommodation occurs faster. The object is perceived by the dominant eye as larger and more contrasting. In experiments on the study of the asymmetry of touch, it was found that the pain threshold is higher on the leading hand, and the temperature sensitivity is higher in the non-leading one.

At this point in time, there are no convincing data proving the existence of a functional asymmetry of the organ of taste and smell.

The distribution of higher nervous functions between the hemispheres (thinking, consciousness, emotions, perception of space and time, speech) is defined as mental asymmetry. It is known that the right hemisphere is involved in the formation of negative emotions: the state of negative emotional stress is manifested by the activation of the parietal-temporal region of the right hemosphere: as a result of the production of certain substances in this zone, the level of cortisol in the blood rises, a shift is observed pain threshold, increasing the frequency and strength of heart contractions.

Mental asymmetry of the cerebral hemispheres is also manifested in relation to speech functions. The center of speech is localized to the right only in 15% of cases, which is more often due to the movement of the center of speech from the left to the right hemisphere as a result of trauma to the left hemisphere of the brain during childhood and puberty.

Right-handed, left-handed and double-handed

Based on the analysis of three types of functional asymmetry, a profile of a person's asymmetry is compiled, which allows us to conditionally divide people into right-handers and left-handers. Moreover, only the presence of 75-100% of "left" or "right" signs allows us to say that a person is a so-called true left-handed or right-handed person.

All the rest are classified as “mixed types”, able to use both arms, legs, eyes, and so on equally. They are called obrukami or ambidexters, and they, in turn, are divided into "pure" and "mixed". "Clean" two-handed hands work equally well with both the right and left hand. But more often ambidexters write well with one hand, and with the other, for example, they hold a spoon - this is a “mixed” type.

For greater clarity, the French even introduced the concept of “graphic left-handed, but everyday right-handed” - for those who do everything with their right hand, and only write or draw with their left.

Oberuku - a phenomenon not as rare as it might seem. So, from the point of view of physiology, in children under two years old, both hands are developed in exactly the same way - because of this, by the way, the assumption arose that we create right-handedness in ourselves, raising our children accordingly. Even the ancient Greek philosopher Plato believed that due to the stupidity of mothers and nannies, who teach us to do everything with our right hand, we acquire this bad habit and from harmoniously developed children, we turn into crippled adults.

Doctors say that it is possible to recognize a right-handed or left-handed person in a person only in the fourth or fifth year of life. True, psychologists do not agree with this statement, who say that left-handedness makes itself felt already in the third month. Folk signs say that if, lying on his back, a child takes a "swordsman's pose", then he is likely to become left-handed; if the baby tries to turn his head to the right all the time, then he will be right-handed.

Why mankind was divided into right-handers and left-handers is unclear.

So, Z. Freud believed that left-handedness is an emotional consequence of something negative that was in a person’s life; geneticists claim that left-handedness / right-handedness is inherited, and some very fantastic theories say that once an expedition from a “parallel universe” visited our planet. The aliens, outwardly no different from people, also had extraordinary psychic abilities. Our ancestors perceived them as gods descended from the sky. Later, earthly women gave birth to children from these "gods" - left-handers who had amazing abilities and talents.

Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences M. Shokhor-Trotskaya.

Marianna Konstantinovna Shokhor-Trotskaya (Burlakova) has been studying left-handers for many years, people for whom the left hand is the leading one. By specialty, she is a teacher-defectologist, one of the leading domestic specialists in overcoming speech disorders in children and adults. She wrote about a hundred scientific works, including six monographs, and a chapter in the textbook "Speech therapy". She has been left-handed since 1974. She repeatedly appeared in the periodical press with articles "It's hard to be left-handed", "Help the left-hander", "Take care of the left-hander", etc. age.

Science and life // Illustrations

"Napoleon's Pose" for a left-hander.

Our brain perceives the body in a completely different way than we do: first of all, it gives place to those organs that need coordination.

Correct positioning of the left-handed hand when writing.

These should be printed recipes for left-handers. Looking at the sample, the child easily circles the written letters and words with a dotted line.

In every kindergarten, in every school there are children with speech impediments, with stuttering, and special kindergartens and schools have been created for children with complex speech disorders.

What's the matter? Can speech disorders in children not be prevented, as many other diseases are prevented? After all, this prevents the child from successfully studying, being confident in his abilities, limits him in choosing an interesting specialty, and gives rise to an inferiority complex.

I assure you that many speech disorders can be prevented or overcome at preschool age. But for this you need to know the reason for their occurrence.

ONE OF THE HIDDEN REASONS FOR FAILING AT SCHOOL

Andryusha and Tanya are brother and sister, wait. The parents decided to send them to school at the same time. But what is surprising is that five-year-old Tanya reads and writes quite decently for her age, and Andryusha, who is six years old, cannot master either reading or writing, pronounces some sounds incorrectly. Andryusha is a fragile, whiny, slightly clumsy child, he often gets it from his peers. In a year to go to the first class, and he is completely unprepared for this. Perhaps the boy would have faced the fate of a loser if his parents had not turned to a speech therapist in time.

Years of experience - both with adults who lost their speech after a stroke, and with children - suggested to me that the boy is most likely left-handed. I am convinced of this with the help of simple tests.

Then I ask my mother if her son is left-handed? Yes, my mother confirms, in early childhood he preferred to do everything with his left hand, but she retrained him.

And here is another example. The mother of an eight-year-old boy turned to me for help. With a sufficiently high intelligence, the child constantly received deuces due to the fact that he read very poorly and slowly, and also wrote with unimaginable errors: he skipped or rearranged letters, syllables, did not always feel the boundaries of words, wrote them together (especially words with prepositions). When it came to speed reading, the boy began to stutter with excitement. As a result, he finished the first class with great difficulty and was only conditionally transferred to the second.

Third example. Mom and Dad brought the boy, who had two repeats in the first and second grades twice, for counseling, after which he was transferred to a school for children with speech disorders. With a good intellect, the boy began to speak at the age of four. In early childhood he was inquisitive, mobile, despite poor coordination of movements in everyday life and in the game (clumsily took a spoon, fork, unsuccessfully threw the ball, etc.); He loved to listen when people read fairy tales and fables to him, he knew quite a few poems. Enrolling in a school for children with speech impairments, the boy drew and wrote equally awkwardly, now and then shifting the pencil from one hand to the other. It was also difficult for him to count within ten (shy, he secretly turned to counting the fingers on his hands). There were difficulties with reading. And all this with a rather extensive amount of knowledge perceived by ear: parents (researchers) read everything interesting to their son, up to an encyclopedia for elementary school.

At the very first communication with the parents, it turned out that they were both left-handed, well-versed in their right hand and taught their son literally from the cradle to use their right hand. And the boy was a stubborn left-hander.

During the examination, he took interest in solving intelligence tests appropriate for his age. But the boy's activity instantly disappeared as soon as I suggested that he write simple (of three or four words) sentences, and then read the text from the "Book for reading" for the first grade and solve several arithmetic examples ranging from 1 to 20. Tears flowed, and the mother took her son for a walk, and the father, in the absence of the boy, took out of the briefcase a lot of notebooks, full of solid red twos.

There was something to think about, and not only about the deuces, which in themselves discouraged the child from learning, but also about the incredible abundance of the most unexpected mistakes of an unusual student. I took notebooks to study mistakes, and I tried to win over the returning student by asking him what he knows how and likes to do. It turned out that his hands, awkward in writing, perform simple pieces of music on the piano well, skillfully cut something with a jigsaw. ... And suddenly the boy, smiling, spoke to me in some incomprehensible language. I was surprised, then he took the book and began to read it from right to left! And then - from left to right, then from right to left. Reads and laughs, rejoicing at my bewilderment.

So here's the thing! Rarely mentioned in the scientific literature is the phenomenon of Leonardo da Vinci: the spontaneously arising ability of left-handers to write from right to left, mirrored, and pronounce not only words, but also entire phrases "topsy-turvy". Our brain power is amazing!

Using the skills of complex mirror writing, Leonardo da Vinci encrypted his technical inventions for several centuries. Simultaneously working with his left and right hand, he drew with one and wrote over the drawing with the other. But that was genius! And here is the unfortunate child, confused between his leading left eye, which reads from right to left, and the skills of writing from left to right being formed at school! It is good that he had such truth-seeking parents, otherwise it is not surprising to discourage the desire to learn.

WITHOUT GUILT GUILT

The problem of left-handedness arose in the mists of time in connection with the performance of various agricultural operations by peasants: mowing land, reaping grain, threshing grain with flails, sawing logs, etc. It was with such manual labor that the features of the motor functions of left-handed and right-handed people were revealed. A left-hander could inadvertently injure a right-hander's legs or arms with a scythe or sickle, break a saw, tangle flails during threshing, etc. For this reason, left-handers were isolated, placed at the end of the "line" in haymaking or harvesting. They were laughed at, they were humiliated. Moreover, there were people who considered left-handedness a manifestation of inferiority, almost ugliness. It is not surprising that in families where leftism was observed, the baby from the moment of birth began to be cruelly retrained from the left hand to the right, mothers, when breastfeeding, clamped the child’s left hand between their own and his body, swaddled it tightly, not suspecting how harmful such actions are.

Often, children were retrained from the left hand to the right and in the privileged classes. In order for the baby to wipe his nose and mouth with his right hand, left pockets were sewn up in his suits, a handkerchief was put only in the right pocket or pinned to the right lapel of the jacket.

For a long time main reason pressure on left-handers was anxiety for their social adaptation in a world where right-handed people prevail and where all technical means are designed for right-handed people. Many parents retrained their children because they were afraid that in the future "leftism" would interfere with the acquisition of a profession. Left-handers also got it from school teachers who strictly followed the instructions - to write to everyone only with their right hand, and retrain left-handed children.

Fortunately, in last years publications in the periodical press about the dangers of retraining left-handers have borne fruit. Attitudes towards left-handed people have changed significantly. Society tries to create conditions for a normal life for them. In many countries there are special shops for left-handers where you can buy various fixtures, sports equipment, sewing machines, computer keyboards, knives, scissors. Plants and factories have machines for left-handers. We do not yet have this, but it is gratifying that teachers and many parents understand that "leftism" is not a whim or a child's stubbornness. It is explained by the special organization of the brain. Naturally, such a child requires a special approach, a lot of work and tact on the part of adults. But his individuality, his health are worth such worries.

WHY LEFT-HANDED? RIDDLES AND RIDDLES

The predominant use of one part of the body over another is characteristic of humans, gorillas and chimpanzees (however, recently zoologists who studied the crows living on the island New Caledonia, found that these birds are also characterized by right-handedness and left-handedness: turning leaves into an auxiliary tool for extracting insects, crows use the right side of the beak much more often than the left; according to my observations, cats, playing with a caught mouse, throw it up more often with their right paw than with their left, I dare to assume that they also tend to be right-handed and left-handed).

There is a point of view that the advantage of the right hand took shape with the acquisition of speech by a person. The man spoke, and the activity of the hemisphere of the brain that controls the right side of the body increased.

One of the first serious works on left-handedness was published in London in 1905. Its author, an English ophthalmologist and neurologist, MD John Jackson, adhered to the social theory of left-handedness. He believed that this was the result of habit, which means that all left-handed children should be taught to use both hands alternately.

A study of the brain of left-handed and right-handed individuals was carried out in 1871 by the English anatomist Ogle. He found that the brain of a left-handed person has a mirror symmetry with respect to the brain of a right-handed person. However, some modern scientists believe that the anatomical differences in the brain of right-handed and left-handed people are not so significant as to explain the difference in the functions of the right and left hemispheres and the choice of the leading (working) hand.

Scientists have not yet put forward an exact explanation for the nature of left-handedness.

Most adhere to the version that handiness depends on two genes. One gene determines the hemisphere that controls speech. Another gene is responsible for which hand the speech hemisphere will control - located on the same side with the hemisphere or on the opposite side. The actions of each hand are regulated, as a rule, by the opposite hemisphere. Based on this theory, most people are right-handed.

It has been established that heredity plays an important role in the choice of the leading hand. So, if both parents are right-handed, the probability of having a left-handed child is 2%. If one of the parents is left-handed, the probability rises to 17%. If both are left-handed, a left-handed child will be born with a probability of 46%.

RIGHT-HANDED AND LEFT-HANDED, ABSOLUTE AND PARTIAL

Left-handedness and right-handedness can be absolute, partial (partial), and sometimes hidden, not detected in everyday life.

Absolute right-handers, in which the right hand, foot, eye and ear are leading, in the European population, where they write with the right hand and read from left to right, are approximately 42%. In such people, the center of speech in 95% of cases is located in the left hemisphere. The right hemisphere performs more global functions: it is in charge of visual perception (recognition) of faces, shapes, colors and other parameters of objects around us, auditory perception of music, sounds of nature (birdsong, animal cries, water splash, etc., intonations and timbre of the voice), it is also responsible for the skills of walking, dressing, feeling the body in space, etc.

For absolute left-handers (8-10% on average), the opposite is true.

The remaining 48-50% of people are either right-handed with signs of left-handedness or left-handed with signs of right-handedness, and more than half of them are left-handed over right-handed. Such people are called partial, or mosaic (partial), left-handers. Mosaic in the sense that their dominant (predominant) in the implementation of speech activity are not all four lobes (occipital, temporal, parietal and frontal) of the right hemisphere in the left-handed person and the left hemisphere in the right-handed person, but, as it were, interspersed. According to the leading eye, a person can be left-handed, and according to the leading hand - right-handed, and vice versa. In a partial left-hander, when testing for signs of handiness, the tests for "fingers in the castle" and "Napoleon's pose" may not coincide. Such a mosaic of dominant and subdominant parts of the brain in terms of speech is characteristic of many individuals with signs of left-handedness.

As my forty-year experience of working with adults who have suffered a stroke or brain injury has shown, speech in partial left-handers recovers much better than in absolute right-handers, since it is often realized by both hemispheres of the brain.

LEADING HAND AND LEADING EYE TESTS

Tests for determining handiness in an infant are observations of which hand he reaches for the rattles hanging in front of him, takes a toy; later: stacks a pyramid of cubes, picks up a pencil, draws, throws a ball, holds a spoon, etc.

The founder of Russian neuropsychology A. R. Luria proposed to determine the leading hand and the leading eye according to the following tests.

Cross your arms over your chest in Napoleon's pose. Which hand from the elbow to the wrist is on top, that is the leading one. If you change the positions of your hands, you will experience discomfort, since you are either left-handed or right-handed.

Interlace your fingers several times in a row. The thumb of which hand is on top is the leading one when performing small movements.

See which hand is on top when you applaud.

Pay attention to the size of the hole of the nail of the thumb and little finger, as well as to the venous system on the hands. The leading hand has a larger hole, and the veins are larger.

Fold your palms evenly, close to each other. Note: The fingers of the dominant hand are usually 1-2 mm longer than the fingers of the other hand.

Take a pencil. "Aim" by selecting a target and looking at it with both eyes through the tip of a pencil. Close one eye, then the other. If the target moves strongly with the left eye closed, then the left eye is the leading one, and vice versa.

The leading foot is the one that you push off when you jump.

Quite often, for many people, these tests do not match. This suggests that they have both hemispheres of speech and that they are partial (partial) left-handers.

It also happens that a person has exactly the same tests for both hands, plus both eyes are leading, target, and their fields of view are the same. This is a rather rare occurrence. Such people are called ambidexters. They are jacks of all trades. Ambidextrous was Leonardo da Vinci. His example confirms the hypothesis that the ability to use the left hand in the same way as the right one contributes to the harmonious development of both hemispheres of the brain.

By the way, in the West it is customary to teach children to write with both the right and left hand.

WHAT DOES OUR UNNEEDED PERSISTENCE LEAD TO?

It is now generally accepted that babies should not be swaddled. Both adults and children need freedom of movement. Restriction of the child's movements inhibits not only the formation of motor skills, but also the timely development of speech functions. This is where the problem of right-handedness and left-handedness in the baby appears. The restriction of the movements of the left hand in a left-handed newborn affects the breakdown of the inherent motor system of the cerebral cortex, which is called the somatotopic projection. In the right-handed person, the somatotopic projection of the entire human body, primarily its moving parts and especially the fingers, speech, articulatory apparatus (larynx, pharynx, tongue, lips, soft palate), is genetically incorporated in the left hemisphere of the brain, in the left-handed person - in the right hemisphere. Swaddling the left hand in a left-handed infant leads to the fact that there is a spatial breakdown in the formation of movements: the movements of the right, not the main hand, are stimulated, and the main, leading hand remains without stimulation. By retraining a left-handed child to hold a spoon, a pencil in his right hand, we thereby shift the innate functions of the right hemisphere, which is leading in left-handed people, to the left, in which they do not have the so-called projection base for fine finger movements and the articulatory apparatus (see diagram of somatotopic projection in the cortex brain). Speech, which develops on the basis of auditory perception, "does not know" in which hemisphere it "settles", it is constantly "pushed" into that hemisphere of the brain, which should realize not speech, but musical perception and reproduction.

That is why often adult left-handed people, who were cruelly retrained in early childhood, do not know how to navigate the terrain, dance, do not perceive melodies (they say about such people that a bear stepped on their ear). Children are clumsy in their movements, they begin to speak later, they pronounce many sounds incorrectly and, like any person deprived of freedom, they are prone to neurosis: they are either retarded in development or overly excited, stubborn, inattentive.

If a child has a dominant left eye, he may not immediately learn how to navigate on a sheet of paper. Vision is arranged in such a way that the left-handed eye involuntarily falls on the right side of the book and notebook. Therefore, he reads the word from the end. He sees that it is nonsense, and does not dare to say it aloud. Parents or the teacher do not understand why the child reads with pauses, they rush him, injure him, while the baby needs help.

Persistent retraining of the left-hander from the left hand to the right can lead to lack of pronunciation, stuttering, difficulties in schooling, repetition, dislike for reading almost for life. And it happens even worse - to negativism, leaving school and family, vagrancy. The speech of such children remains monosyllabic for a long time, drawing skills and motor plasticity are delayed. And his parents are to blame for the troubles of the child, striving to make their baby like everyone else, that is, right-handed.

Many left-handers, retrained in childhood, write all their lives and hold a spoon with their right hand. But everything that they were not taught in childhood to do with the right hand, even in adulthood they do it with the left. The right hand often remains with them less dexterous, less adapted to work.

I will give a number of examples from the life of adult left-handers. (I already wrote that I worked in a clinic with seriously ill people who lost their speech due to a stroke and forgot how to read and write. In neurology, this is called aphasia.) Often, as people age, they forget about their left-handedness in childhood and deny it. One patient, a dressmaker who denied that she was left-handed, suddenly remembered that she sewed with her right hand, as her mother had taught her in childhood, and she overcast buttonholes, seams and hemmed the hem only with her left. A young man, who considered himself right-handed, suddenly noticed during the examination: "I do everything with my right hand, but I cut inscriptions and portraits on monuments only with my left hand!" The third patient, when asked what he wanted to become in childhood, sadly said: "As a father, I wanted to become a violinist, but there was a war, there was nowhere to get a violin for the left hand!" So suddenly adults remember that in childhood they were left-handed.

LEFT-HANDED SHOULD KNOW HE IS LEFT-HANDED

Yes, technical manipulators are designed for right-handers, but after all, a retrained left-hander in extreme conditions while driving involuntarily begins to “turn the steering wheel” with his left hand and flies under oncoming traffic.

Among artists, poets, writers, actors, mathematicians, composers, violinists and cellists (who have a huge load on the left hand), there are many left-handers. Lefties gave humanity many geniuses in various fields: Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Napoleon Bonaparte, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, M. V. Lomonosov, A. S. Pushkin, L. N. Tolstoy, V. I. Dal, and P. Pavlov, Albert Einstein, Charlie Chaplin, G. M. Vitsin...

Take care of the left-hander, let him be left-handed, but as free as a right-hander, just as confident in his abilities. Give freedom of action to his hands, and he himself will learn to do a lot with both hands. Don't discourage him from learning. Let him be interested in everything. Let the child know that he is left-handed: having matured, he will be more attentive at the wheel, at the helm, at the control panel.

HOW CAN WE HELP A LEFT-HANDER?

It is very important to determine the dominant hand and the dominant eye in a child before school.

If the child has the dominant eye on the left, and the dominant hand on one or both tests is the right, help him learn to read by marking with a colored pencil the letter with which to start reading, and later fix the direction of the gaze with a line from top to bottom.

Often left-handed children write printed letters mirror, "in the opposite direction." It is useless to comment on them. It is better to invite the child to design letters from sticks according to the model different lengths and semicircles, and then outlining the letters, written in dotted lines and provided with arrows showing where to start and where to draw the line. It is useful to say with the child the plan for writing the letter (first ..., then ...), draw his attention to the similarities and differences in the elements of the letter.

Help a left-handed child place his hand correctly when drawing and writing with his left hand. The hands of a left-handed child should lie on the table so that the elbow of the left hand protrudes slightly beyond the edge of the table and the hand moves freely along the line, and the right one lies on the table and holds the sheet. The left hand should be facing the table surface. The fulcrum for her are the nail phalanges of the slightly bent little finger and ring finger, as well as the lower part of the palm. The fountain pen is placed on the upper, nail part of the middle finger, and the nail phalanges of the thumb and forefinger hold it at a distance of 1.5-2 cm from the end of the rod. In the process of writing, the left-hander moves from left to right (the direction of the pen is to the left, and the movement of the hand and fingers is to the right). The left hand with the pen is under the line. This is the most convenient way of writing, since the child does not have to twist his hand, the sample is clearly visible, and previously written is not smeared. Naturally, the letters will be written with an inclination to the left. In this case, the notebook lies with an inclination to the right, the lower right corner of the page is directed towards the middle of the chest. Do not forget that when writing and drawing, the light of a left-handed child should fall on the right.

In no way show your negative attitude towards the left-handedness of the child. In communication, adhere to the tactics of advice, and not an unquestioning order. Do not dramatize the situation of school failures. The child must be sure that all difficulties are temporary.

To develop motor skills and hand-eye coordination in a left-handed person, include sports, modeling, drawing (or get carried away with embroidery, knitting, macramé, origami) in your daily routine.

Take care of the rational mode of the day, without overload. After all, a left-handed child, as a rule, is excitable, quickly gets tired.

If by the age of five the child has not mastered the pronunciation of the sounds "l", "p", whistling, hissing sounds, or all voiced sounds are muffled, and solid - softly, be sure to contact a speech therapist, as at school he will confuse these sounds when writing ( letters), which will affect performance. Classes with a speech therapist require quite a lot of time and effort, so it is advisable to solve this problem at the same five-year-old age, before entering school, when the child is not yet loaded with lessons. And most importantly, develop the child's desire to learn, praise him for the slightest success. Remember the simplest speech games attention: flies - swims, high - low, etc. Teach your child to read store signs, to hear syllables with the same, exaggeratedly pronounced sounds in a word (for example, a bell - a splinter - a goat - a tooth). Pay attention to the length of words, to the first and last letters words, specify the meanings of words that are similar in sound: house - tom, barrel - kidney, roof - rat, etc. Beat with claps in your palms when reading poems, when singing (or dancing to singing) the rhythm of music and rhymes of the text, the number of syllables in a word. Write the names of close people and ask them to determine the order of individual sounds. Do everything as a game. When a child makes a mistake, do not notice it, praise for resourcefulness and diligence, for the fact that he already knows and knows so much. Tell him about Lefty from the fairy tale by N. S. Leskov, who shod a flea. Get familiar with the geographic map. Interested in biology, botany. Tell me about anything interesting. Expand the horizons of the child, but ... do not retrain him from the left hand to the right. This is not only violence against the psyche, not only the humiliation of human dignity, but also a gross interference in the most complex activity of the brain. Gently help your child to adapt to the technical devices made for the right hand. And then he will delight you with his academic success, curiosity, observation. And there will be no problem with repeating. And your assistants will be a speech therapist, kindergarten teacher, first grade teacher.

Literature

Balonov L., Deglin V. - L.: Nauka, 1976.

speech and aphasia.- M.: Medicine, 1997.

Burlakova M. Speech therapist's advice.

Wayne A. Brain and creativity.

Markina N. "Science and Life" No. 6, 2001.

Human brain."Science and Life" No. 4, 1962.

Nikolaenko N. Return from oblivion."Science and Life" No. 8, 2001.

Rotenberg W. Brain. hemispheric strategy."Science and Life" No. 6, 1984.

Khomskaya E. M.: Moscow State University, 1995.

M.: EKSMO-Press, 2000.

Balonov L., Deglin V. Hearing and speech of the dominant and non-dominant hemispheres.- L .: Nauka, 1976.

Burlakova M. (Shokhor-Trotskaya). speech and aphasia.- M.: Medicine, 1997.

Burlakova M. Speech therapist's advice.- M.: Institute for General Humanitarian Research, 2001.

Wayne A. Brain and creativity."Science and Life" Nos. 3, 4, 1983.

Markina N. The brain of right-handers and left-handers - what's the difference?"Science and Life" No. 6, 2001.

Human brain."Science and Life" No. 4, 1962.

Nikolaenko N. Return from oblivion."Science and Life" No. 8, 2001.

Rotenberg W. Brain. hemispheric strategy."Science and Life" No. 6, 1984.

Chomskaya E. Methods for assessing interhemispheric asymmetry and interhemispheric interaction. - M.: MGU, 1995.

Shokhor-Trotskaya M. (Burlakova). Correction of complex speech disorders. - M.: EKSMO-Press, 2000.

THE HUMAN BRAIN IN NUMBERS

The weight of the brain of an adult is only 2% of the total body weight.

According to rough estimates, the brain contains 100 billion neurons - nerve cells responsible for sensory perception, mental and motor activity of a person.

At any given moment, the brain is bathed in 15% of all blood and absorbs 20% nutrients and oxygen.

Dominant eye test

"Aim" by selecting a target and looking at it with both eyes through the tip of a pencil. Close one eye, then the other. If the target moves strongly with the left eye closed, then the left eye is the leading one, and vice versa.

Leading Hand Tests

Cross your arms over your chest in Napoleon's pose. Which hand from the elbow to the wrist is on top, that is the leading one.

Interlace your fingers several times in a row. The thumb of which hand is on top is the leading one when performing small movements. Help from parents for a left-handed child

Help your child learn to read by marking the letter with a colored pencil to start reading.

Take care of the correct setting of the hand when drawing and writing.

Do not show your negative attitude towards left-handedness in any way. Please note that it is expressed not only in your reproach, but also in a heavy sigh when you pick up a notebook, and in impatience with an explanation.

In communication, adhere to the tactics of advice, and not an unquestioning order.

Do not dramatize the situation of school failures.

To develop motor skills and hand-eye coordination in a left-handed person, include sculpting, drawing, origami, etc. in the daily routine.

Take care of a rational daily routine so that the child does not experience overload.

left-handedness- this is one of the options for the development of the body, associated with the features of the brain. In left-handers, first of all, interhemispheric interaction and specialization of the hemispheres are not formed.

Each hemisphere of the brain has its own role.

Left hemisphere called rational-logical. It is in charge of logical, analytical, abstract thinking. processes information sequentially, progressively, sorting through all possible options. The left hemisphere is mainly responsible for the right side of the body: it receives information about the right eye, ear, right arm, leg. Right hemisphere called emotional. It is responsible for figurative thinking, perception of art, imagination. The right hemisphere processes information at once, instantly perceiving a holistic image, our ability to emotional perception, synthetic thinking, intuition, visual-spatial functions rely on it. The right hemisphere serves the left side of the body.

Usually, by the age of 4-5, children develop dominant hand, eye, ear. The leading left hand (ear, eye) indicates the activity of the right hemisphere. Up to this point, children can pick up objects, hold a spoon, draw, cut, etc. one hand, then the other. Hemisphere dominance has not yet been established. It is important at this time not to insist that the child perform actions with one hand, when dominance is established, this will happen naturally.

Left handedness and left handedness

The study of the characteristics of left-handers is complicated by the fact that left-handers are not at all a homogeneous group.

left-handedness defines only the leading hand, while leftism- a complex characteristic reflecting great activity the right hemisphere of the brain (unlike right-handers, in which the left hemisphere dominates). Thus, if your child prefers to do everything with his left hand, then you can confidently say that he is left-handed. However, whether he is left-handed in general can be judged only after it is revealed that he has dominant eye, dominant leg and dominant ear(observation that the child uses more often).

When studying at school, of course, the most important is the characteristic of the leading hand, since the baby will have to master the letter.

Causes of left-handedness

There are various reasons for left-handedness, on which the development of certain qualities in a child may depend.

• genetic leftism.

left-handedness is 10-12 times more common in families in which at least one of the parents is left-handed

• "Compensatory" left-handedness associated with any damage to the brain, more often its left hemisphere in case of any injury, illness at an early stage of child development
• "Forced" left-handedness. The choice of the leading hand in such left-handers is usually associated with an injury to the right hand, but may also be the result of imitation of relatives or friends.
• pseudo-left-handedness in children, the dominant hemisphere in relation to the hand is not formed. Then there is pseudo-left-handedness or, more often, approximately equal use of both hands.

Left-Handed Features

Left-handed people demonstrate, on the one hand, higher creative abilities (the rigidity of established connections can contribute to more standard thinking), and on the other hand, a slower formation of skills in activities that require the interaction of both hemispheres compared to right-handed people.

The study of the emotional sphere: right-handed people show greater sensitivity to positive emotions, while left-handed and ambidexter people are characterized by a predominance of negative emotions, i.e. they are more pessimistic. Studies conducted at the University of Michigan (according to I. Makariev) revealed that left-handers are dominated by such indicators of temperament, as anger (emotional incontinence), fear (fearfulness), low mood background, comfort, conscientiousness, timidity, aesthetic impressionability, sensuality, elevated level anxiety.

According to some psychologists, Lefties have particular difficulty adjusting to school. According to some authors, the percentage of various kinds of left-handers among children with learning problems is at least 2.5 times higher than the average figures for right-handers.

Habitual Problems a left-handed child - persistent difficulties in remembering the direction of the clock hands, determining "left", "right", sometimes - "above", "below".

In a left-handed world, reading or writing a letter or number is equally likely in any direction (both horizontal and vertical). Accordingly, this also applies to more complex actions: you can start reading, writing, counting, remembering, interpreting a plot picture from any side (including from the bottom up). When drawing, for example, the child is not able to adequately distribute the space of the sheet of paper lying in front of him: his drawings crawl over each other, although there is enough free space around. The fact is that the starting point for mastering these skills is visual perception.

Violation or insufficiency of the development of visual-spatial perception, visual memory and hand-eye coordination, often found in left-handers, lead to the following difficulties:

1. perception and memorization of complex configurations of letters when reading and, accordingly, a slow pace;
2. formation of a visual image of letters, numbers (violation of the ratio of elements, the child confuses letters and numbers similar in configuration, writes extra elements or does not add elements of letters, numbers);
3. highlighting and distinguishing geometric shapes, replacing shapes similar in shape (circle - oval, square - rhombus - rectangle);
4. copying;
5. unstable handwriting (uneven strokes, large, stretched, differently inclined letters);
6. mirror writing of letters, numbers, graphic elements;
7. very slow writing.

With a phenomenon mirror movements most parents of little left-handers are probably familiar. For some it appears as mirror writing(the child starts writing with the letter that ends the word, then writes the penultimate one, etc., so if you attach a mirror to the written word, you will see the word written in a mirror image in the traditional way), but there are also mirror reading, mirror drawing , mirror perception.

If after 10 years the manifestations of mirror perception persist, then it is recommended to conduct a thorough analysis of the type of mirror movements, their causes and organize special classes that correct deficiencies in spatial perception, coordination, attention and self-examination skills.

Along with mirror writing in children, it is often observed mirror drawing. Especially characteristic is inversion when drawing: top and bottom, vertical and horizontal, right and left are reversed, and the child does not feel wrong.

Huge difficulties face the left-hander and in determining the time on the dial. They not only mirror one or both arrows, but also make metric errors- determine the time with a difference of 10-15 minutes (this also applies to the hour hand).

Typically, most lefties have distortions and delays in the development of speech(oral and written), reading, counting, constructive processes, emotions.

It is important that all these disproportions increase with unskilled retraining of children.

Almost all left-handed children have a colossal, almost mystical voluntary control over their mental activity. In many cases, they achieve the desired results in a roundabout way, sometimes finding the most unthinkable external or internal means. And every time this process is simply unpredictable.

A left-handed child, as it were, every time invents his own way of mastering the world of right-handers. At the same time, he has to “pass through his head” everything. And neuropsychologists know that the human brain is an amazingly perfect and delicate instrument, but it also has a finite amount of energy in each case. The more energy is required for higher mental processes (thinking, speech, counting), the more likely it is to "rob" the basal structures of the psyche (emotional, somatic, and others).

Just this mechanism is often observed in left-handers. If any child requires attention in this sense, then the left-hander - three times more.

Is it worth retraining left-handed children?

To prevent even such doubts, I would like to remind you once again that we are talking not only about the leading hand, but about a certain organization of the brain. By retraining the left-hander, we unsuccessfully try to remake the biological nature of the child.

It should be understood that by forcing the child to write with his right hand, we cannot change the leading hemisphere.

That's why retraining can result in: violations of the pace and rhythm of speech (according to statistics, every third child with stuttering is a retrained left-hander), serious changes in emotional state child (he can become quick-tempered, capricious, irritable, sleep restlessly, eat poorly). Later, even more serious disorders appear: frequent headaches, constant lethargy. As a result, neurotic reactions develop, for example, nervous tics, enuresis, or the functional state of the neuropsychic sphere is disturbed, i.e. neurosis develops, for example, writing spasm.

Overtrained left-handers may have various neurological manifestations: appetite and sleep disorders, fears, enuresis (urinary incontinence), tics, stuttering, indigestion, irritability, mood swings, motion sickness.

Separately studied manifestations of neurosis in left-handed children:

1. Asthenic neurosis. Symptoms of this type of neurosis are manifested in the following: increased fatigue, exhaustion nervous system, a sharp decrease in performance. Physically, children can work actively only in the first two lessons, and then it is very difficult to awaken their attention, but then motor disinhibition occurs. Preparing lessons at home is usually delayed, and the results are unsatisfactory. Written tasks are performed with special difficulties. The handwriting is unstable (letters of different sizes, different inclinations, the line is not observed, many additional strokes, corrections).
2. Obsessional neurosis. This type of neurosis manifests itself in families where parents are anxious about left-handedness and believe that it can serve as an obstacle in later life. If parents force children to perform all actions with their right hand, they usually obey and try, even though it doesn’t work out well. Parents very often see disobedience, caprice, stubbornness in this and punish them. These children have an anxious expectation of failure, and in the future - obsessive thoughts about one's inferiority. Such children are often disturbed by school fears of failure, of written work.
3. neurotic enuresis. In most cases, only nocturnal enuresis is noted, but it can also occur during the day. Enuresis causes guilt, fear of punishment. Working capacity decreases even more, the child cannot concentrate, a vicious circle is formed.
4. neurotic tics. Tics include: blinking, lip licking, forehead wrinkling, nose twitching. Such phenomena rarely cause excitement and anxiety of parents. The child does not control these movements. Tics are not directly related to the performance of tasks with the right hand, but intensify when the child is tired, nervous.

Help

1. It is necessary to help the left-hander organize his workplace, change the slope of the notebook when writing, the position of the forearms, take the pen correctly, make sure that the light falls on the right;
2. You should not demand a right-handed letter from a left-hander; it would be more appropriate for them to write straight. The actions of a teacher who lowers a mark for handwriting to a left-handed child are illegal. There are methodological recommendations of the Ministry of Health (dated 1985), which talk about the prohibition of retraining left-handers and the need to reduce the requirements for the calligraphic side of the handwriting of left-handed children. It is allowed to write vertically or tilt letters to the left
3. It is categorically contraindicated to require unseparated writing from a left-handed child.
4. Any motor actions must be decomposed into elements, explaining step by step, each element must be performed consciously.
5. It is advisable to perform special exercises, play with the child in games that develop visual perception and hand-eye coordination.
6. Never show a negative attitude towards left-handedness, use the characteristics of such a child in the classroom to instill in children respect for the individual characteristics of each person, tolerance towards the manifestation of properties that are not characteristic of the majority.

When learning for left-handed children, sensory sensations (visual, tactile) are important. Therefore, for a better understanding and memorization educational material use drawings, visual aids.

For lefties it is very difficult to work in large groups with strict regulations and strict subordination. Therefore, you should think very carefully before sending a left-handed child to kindergarten, military school and college.

Left-handers are very vulnerable and sensitive, take care of the child from unnecessary stress, often praise him even for small achievements.

Parents I would like to give advice: do not tell the baby that the left hand is bad. A lefty should never feel your negative attitude. Do not compare your baby with others (right-handed and left-handed), do not expect the same success from him as other children. If you really want to compare, then compare it only with yourself: "Today you did a better job than yesterday, well done!" Remember that he is a very unusual and extraordinary little person.

Center for Psychological Consultations.

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INTRODUCTION

Different people live in the world. Left-handed people have always aroused special interest and some wary attitude of others, aroused surprise and curiosity. In the Middle Ages, people who did everything with their left hand were burned at the stake. IN modern world they tried to forcefully treat them. And yet, every year there are more and more left-handers. If statistics are to be believed, there are twice as many births today as there were 24 years ago. And according to scientists, by 2020 their number on Earth will exceed one billion.

The relevance of the topic - in society there is an ambiguous attitude towards left-handedness, some consider it a serious shortcoming, others - a manifestation of genius. The existence of such extreme points of view testify to the little knowledge of this phenomenon. The number of left-handed newborns began to increase, and what the parents of a left-handed child should do, retrain or not, we will study in the course of work.

Left-handedness is a feature that is clearly visible to others.

August 13 is International Left-Handed Day. Where does "left-handedness" come from? What to do: be upset or rejoice if you or your child is left-handed? What is the peculiarity of people in whom the left hand dominates? Is left-handedness a "gift of fate" or a "punishment"? What needs to be done to adapt to the right-handed world as much as possible?

The purpose of the work is to identify the causes of the development of left-handedness, positive and negative sides for left-handers, to find the answer to the question: is it worth retraining a left-hander? Give advice to parents of left-handed children.

1. Define left-handedness, study the data on the causes of the development of left-handedness in science, analyze the positive and negative aspects in the life of a left-handed person, study the consequences of retraining left-handed people.

2. To identify left-handers among the students of school No. 18, perform a comparative analysis, and compile a genealogical tree of the left-handed family.

3. Show the results of the study of the work performed, answer the question: “Is it worth retraining a left-hander?”, Give recommendations to parents of left-handed children.

The object of study is the human population

The subject of the study is left-handedness among people.

Research methods:

The study of the theoretical part;

Comparative analysis;

Questioning;

Drawing up a family tree

Practical significance: this work will introduce the features of left-handed people, will allow you to find out the reasons for the development of left-handedness, and also answer the question “Is it worth retraining a left-handed person?”, Give recommendations to parents of left-handed children.

1 Left-handedness among people

1.1 Definition of left-handedness

“In nature, movement goes from right to left.

All luminaries and their satellites describe circular paths from east to west.

In humans, the right hand is better developed than the left ...

The volutes of the shell, with rare exceptions, are turned from right to left.

And if a left-handed shell comes across, connoisseurs value it worth its weight in gold.”

Jules Verne

The hand is “the most multifunctional organ motor activity» . There are many designations for the asymmetry of the hands, the most common designations are: right-handed, left-handed, ambidexter.

Left-handedness is not a pathology and not a lack of development. Left-handedness is a very important individual feature of a person. Scientists have put forward a hypothesis that in ancient times humanity was overwhelmingly left-handed. The predominance of the right hand appeared later, as a result of evolution. The left hand has great potential. It is more resistant to static loads, more accurately determines the shape of objects by touch, and reaches the specified force faster.

A left-hander is a person who prefers to use the left hand instead of the right. Left-handedness - congenital or forced use of the left hand. Such individual characteristics depend on the dominance of one or another hemisphere of the brain.

And here it is appropriate to recall the name of the French doctor Paul Broca, who drew attention to the fact that paralysis of the right hand is very often accompanied by impaired speech, and with paralysis of the left limb, speech usually does not suffer.

What is the division of functions between the left and right hemispheres of the brain. Responsibility for different types activities are divided among them. Moreover, one of the hemispheres is dominant, and the other is subdominant, i.e. subordinates. In this case, a cross process occurs: the right half human body governs the left hemisphere of the brain and vice versa. Thus, in right-handers, the left side of the brain dominates in the body, and in left-handers, the right side.

The right hemisphere processes information at once, it perceives the world vividly, colorfully, figuratively, holistically, and does not calculate it; it is responsible for emotions, intuitive abilities, the ability to synthesize, understand humor, is responsible for spatial and visual functions;

it is sensitive to intonation (while the left hemisphere is not able to distinguish shades of emotions in the voice), to facial expressions, it is musical. Given this characteristic, it is appropriate to recall the genius of left-handers, that is, those in which the right hemisphere dominates.

The percentage of giftedness among left-handed people is unusually high: Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein.

In music: Mozart, Beethoven.

In painting: Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Rubens.

Actors: Robert De Niro, Julia Robert, Bruce Willis, Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone.

Computer genius - Bill Gates.

It is advisable to determine the leading hand at 4-5 years old, because, starting from 16-20 weeks and up to 2 years, the child experiences a wave-like change in “handiness”. From 2 to 4 years old, the hands are practically equivalent and equally active, and most of the actions are performed with both hands. And only at the age of 4-5 years the child prefers one of the hands.

Lefties make up 10-17 percent of the world's population. There are about 15-18 million of them in Russia. Moreover, the domestic army of left-handers has been increasing year by year - since public education finally left dissimilar students alone. The following is known for certain: among the children of right-handed parents, left-handers make up approximately 2 percent, if one parent is right-handed - 17 percent, and for two left-handers - 46 percent. There are approximately 9-11 percent of left-handed children in the world, but in our country - almost 25 percent. This fact is explained by one unfortunate circumstance: a rare Russian mother gives birth without problems. Pathology in childbirth reaches 70 percent.

An increased number of left-handers is noted among twins. Statistically, the identical twin of a left-handed person has a 76% chance of being left-handed, the reasons for this being identified as partly genetic and partly environmental.

There are many more left-handers among the populations of South Asia, Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia than in other ethnic groups around the world, while among the populations of Western and Northern Europe, Africa, left-handers are much less common.

1.2 Data on the causes of the development of left-handedness in science

Theories of the origin of left-handedness:

The asymmetry of the hands is explained by the asymmetry of other organs (Aristotle).

Mirror symmetry of the brain of a left-hander (V. Ogl, 1871)

Social theory of left-handedness. Left-handedness is the result of habit (S. Jackson, 1905).

Left-handedness is the result of emotional negativism (S. Freud).

Separation of functions between the left and right hemispheres of the brain (A.V. Semenovich, 1950)

1. A person can be "compensatory" left-handed due to some kind of brain damage, more often - his left hemisphere. The activity of the right hand is mainly regulated by the left hemisphere, and therefore, in the event of an injury (may be birth) or illness, the right hemisphere can take over the corresponding functions. Thus, the left hand becomes the leading one, that is, more active when performing everyday activities, and later, most often when writing.

2. Testosterone: According to neurologist Norman Geschwind, exposing a fetus to high doses of testosterone before birth can result in a left-handed baby. According to Norman Geschwind, testosterone affects the rate of prenatal growth of the hemispheres of the developing brain and is responsible for possible differences in the structure of the brain in men and women. The high content of testosterone during prenatal development, according to Geschwind, slows down the growth of the left hemisphere in the male fetus compared to the female one and contributes to the relatively greater development of the right hemisphere in males. 3. Ultrasound Theory: A popular theory that ultrasound examinations can affect the brains of unborn children. It is believed that this can cause the development of left-handedness. The theory has a very limited application (only in humans and only in developed countries in the last few decades) and cannot explain or predict anything.

4. The evolutionary theory of asymmetry by V. A. Geodakyan: right-handedness and left-handedness are not a pathology, but normal, adaptive phenotypes for a stable and changeable environment that regulate the behavioral plasticity of society. The embryo is dominated by the more ancient biological right hemisphere, which controls the left hand. Under the best conditions, the intensive development of the left hemisphere leads to the fact that sooner or later it overtakes the right hemisphere and there is a complete translocation of the dominance of the hemispheres and hands, that is, left-handedness turns into trans-right-handedness (predominance of the left hemisphere of the right hand). Extreme conditions (ecological and psychological stress of the mother) create hypoxia that depresses the more sensitive left hemisphere of the embryo.

Archaeological evidence suggests that, after initially using both hands equally (symmetry), there was an asymmetry towards a preference for using the right hand.

5. In 2008, British scientists found the "left-handed gene." The LRRTM1 gene plays a key role in the formation of speech and emotions.

6. In 2012, Canadian researcher S. Koren found that those who prefer writing with the left hand are more often born in late marriages than young parents. From her point of view, the physiologically normal age for childbearing is 18-24 years. She made certain calculations, according to which 30-35-year-old parents of left-handers are born 25% more, 35-39-year-olds - already 69%, and 40-year-old fathers and mothers have a very close chance of having a left-handed child. to 100%.

Conclusion: to date, several theories of the causes of the development of left-handedness in science are known, but none has been proven with accuracy.

1.3 Positive and negative aspects in the life of a left-hander

Positive sides

There is in the "left" and its pluses.

1. Forced to adapt to the "right-handed" world, left-handers of necessity develop both hands, while right-handers usually operate with one. That is why many left-handers have an advantage and achieve serious success in some sports. Left-handed tennis players, fencers, boxers, wrestlers do not like very much - it is inconvenient to compete with them.

2. Lefties are more likely to be geniuses - or have a high IQ.

3. British scientist Chris McManus, in the book "Right Hand, Left Hand" proves that throughout human history, left-handers have achieved higher achievements than right-handers.

4. Left-handed men make more money than right-handed men.

5. Lefties see better underwater.

6. As a general rule, left-handers are better at video games than right-handers.

7. Left-handers are easier to tolerate and recover from a stroke than right-handers. 8. Left-handed drivers are more successful at learning to drive than right-handers. 9. Succeed in sports.

Recently, more and more left-handed specialty stores or departments in regular stores have begun to appear in the world, where you can buy everything for left-handed people - from knives and forks to golf sets, musical instruments and computer accessories.

Negative sides

Of course, certain difficulties will always go hand in hand with a lefty. The right-handed world will try to trip every time the left-hander reaches for something with a developed, left hand. You have to adapt, learn, adapt. Or look for an alternative - buy special items for left-handers.

1. Many things - from scissors, cameras and computers to sewing machines, machine guns and turnstiles in the subway - "sharpened" for right-handed people.

2. Left-handers are more likely to get injured on the job than right-handers.

3. Left-handers are much more likely to develop musculoskeletal disorders because tools and equipment are designed for those who are better at using their right hand.

4. Handwriting can be a big problem, because as a left-handed child learns to write, he often touches a line already written, thereby smearing the ink on the page.

Conclusion: positive aspects much more negative.

1.4 Retraining left-handers as it was, consequences

- I was undeservedly offended and insulted precisely because my hand was not the main one,

And the first one who offended and insulted me was my mother. She herself, being left-handed, she beat me for it...

- actor Viktor Sukhorukov shares his memories.

Previously, it was believed that left-handedness is an anomaly, you need to get rid of it. Many endowed with this gift, parents and teachers tried to retrain in childhood. Until 1986, a special program for the retraining of left-handers worked in the USSR, starting from kindergarten. No one thought that the retraining of such children led to tragic consequences: their natural connections between the hemispheres of the brain were torn, neuroses and stress began. “I grieved, I suffered, I cried, I didn’t know what to do with it,” Sukhorukov admits in the film.

In the USSR, it was believed that left-handed children must be retrained so that they use only their right hand when writing. It was only years later that the negative consequences of forced transformation became noticeable and recognized, as a result of which, in 1986, the need to retrain left-handers was abolished at the legislative level.

Left-handed retraining is an unsuccessful attempt to remake the child's biological nature. He can be forced to write and eat with his right hand, but it is impossible to change the leading hemisphere of the brain.

As Soviet experience has shown, retraining leads to a significant deterioration in the mental and physical health of left-handed people. This state is called « dextrastress » according to A.P. Chuprikov. Dextrastress is a painful psychophysiological stress experienced by a left-handed person under pressure from a right-handed environment.

In its most striking form, "dextrastress" manifests itself in the forced retraining of left-handed children and the prohibition to write with the left hand. Its consequence is the deterioration of the child's health: the appearance of various neurotic and neurosis-like conditions (depression, fears, nocturnal enuresis, stuttering, etc.), exacerbation of the hidden consequences of perinatal hypoxic encephalopathy - up to epilepsy.

In the process of forced relearning, the child becomes quick-tempered, capricious, irritable, sleeps restlessly, his appetite decreases. Later, more serious disorders appear: frequent headaches, constant lethargy. According to medical statistics, every third child with stuttering is an overtrained left-hander.

Violations can appear both singly and in combination. In addition, retraining is fraught with the fact that the child will study poorly at school, and later at the institute.

A retrained left-handed person, who has forcibly adapted himself to the right type of motor behavior that is inconvenient for him, retains all the features in the sensory sphere and neuropsychic activity.

Today, there is no reasonable reason for teachers and parents to force children to change hands. Explanations offered range from "It's not nice to see a person write with their left hand" to "The world is made for right-handed people and my left-handed child will be in a losing position." All this is unconvincing, and these excuses often mask a common prejudice against left-handers - a prejudice that is now rapidly disappearing!

Conclusion: retraining causes irreparable damage to the health of the child.

2 Practical research

2.1 Identification of left-handers among students of school No. 18

A survey was conducted among students of school No. 18. The questionnaire is presented in Appendix A. The data of the survey results are presented in Figure 2.1

Figure 2.1 - The results of the survey among students of school No. 18

Conclusion: by conducting a survey among students of school No. 18, 2 left-handed children out of 74 were identified.

Data on the attitude of students and teachers to left-handedness are presented in Figure 2.2.

Figure 2.2 - Attitude of students and teachers to left-handedness

Conclusion: 4 people consider left-handedness a deviation in development, 73 people - a common feature, 7 people - a genius.

In Appendix B, there are photographs in which a left-hander is recognized with the help of certain tasks: “Brush Castle”, “Napoleon's Pose”.

2.2 Comparative analysis of the performance of the same type of work between left-handed and right-handed people empirically

A) Knitting - it is easier for the right-hander to cope with the task, and for the left-hander the teacher could not pass on knitting skills.

B) Opening the door - the door is arranged for the right-hander, it is convenient for the right-hander to open it, for the left-hander - no.

C) Using a spoon for cream - the spout of the spoon is arranged on the right, it is convenient for the right-hander, it is difficult for the left-hander to use.

D) Left-handed and right-handed sit at the same desk - they interfere with each other to write.

E) The left-hander, trying to write with his right hand, experiences discomfort and inconvenience, the handwriting is distorted.

Photos are presented in Appendix B.

2.3 Family tree of the left-handed family

In the section "Data on the causes of the development of left-handedness in science", there is a theory that, in 2008, British scientists found the "left-handed gene". The LRRTM1 gene plays a key role in the formation of speech and emotions.

Based on the proposed theory, a genealogical tree of the left-handed family was compiled, where the transmission of the LRRTM1 gene is traced. Annex D

3 Left-handedness is not a pathology

3.1 Findings of the study

After analyzing the positive and negative aspects in the life of left-handers with the help of theory and practice, it was found that left-handedness has much more pluses than minuses. In the modern world, shops are open to purchase devices specifically for left-handers, left-handers are smoothly rebuilt to the right hand as needed, today left-handers are not exterminated, according to Figure 2.2. treated as a normal feature.

Having studied how left-handers were retrained in the USSR and to what psychological and physical consequences This leads to the conclusion that the difficulties that a left-handed person has in the course of the experiments do not justify the forcible retraining of left-handed children.

Left-handedness is not a pathology and not a lack of development. Left-handedness is a very important individual feature of a person.

But why this happens, no one knows. And if you were born left-handed, then you automatically got into the list of mysteries of nature. And let a lot of trials fall to your lot, you are left-handed, which means you can handle it. The original facets of thinking are available to you, you look at everything from a special point of view. Your approach to any topic can be so unusual that right-handers will shake their heads in disbelief.

How to behave as parents of a left-handed child

Of course, it is important to always remember that the child's leading hand is the left. However, what you definitely should not do is:

Excessively remind him of left-handedness, highlighting his dissimilarity with most people - neither the child nor those around him should see anything abnormal in this. This attitude towards left-handedness is a direct road to low self-esteem and shyness.

Praise for left-handedness - the child may form the opinion that he stands out only because he is left-handed.

Each time, check if he is comfortable holding objects - it's better to just be more observant, sometimes offer a solution or help, and always try to put yourself in the shoes of a left-handed child.

And of course, you should not retrain the child - this is a real "violence" on the baby's brain.

What activities are suitable for a left-handed child

Due to the fact that in a little left-handed person the leading hemisphere of the brain is the right, more creative, creative and imaginative, such children often show interest in various types Arts: Drawing, sculpting, dancing, and music can be great fun for your child.

Some note that all left-handers are united by inquisitiveness, the desire to know the structure of this world. This character trait helps in the development of natural sciences and those disciplines where their excellent sense of space can be applied: geography, geometry, and so on.

Well, do not forget about the harmonious physical development of a left-handed child. Sports such as running, boxing, tennis, gymnastics and game types sports are great for left-handed children.

Conclusion

In the first chapter, a definition of left-handedness is given, data on the causes of the development of left-handedness in science are studied. To date, several theories of the causes of the development of left-handedness in science are known, but none has been proven with accuracy. The positive and negative aspects in the life of left-handers are analyzed, the positive aspects are much more negative. The consequences of retraining left-handed people have been studied, retraining causes irreparable damage to the health of the child

In the second chapter, left-handers were identified among the students of school No. 18, by conducting a survey among the students of the school, 2 left-handed children out of 74 were identified.

A comparative analysis has been carried out, a genealogical tree of the left-handed family has been compiled.

In the third chapter, the results of the study of the work performed are shown, the answer to the question “Is it worth retraining a left-hander?” is given, recommendations are given to parents of left-handers.

Achieved goals and objectives of the work.

List of used literature

1 Bezrukikh M.M., Dubrovinskaya N.V., Farber D.A., Psychophysiology of the child. Psychophysiological foundations of children's valueology: M .: VLADOS, 2000, p. 144.

2 Burenkova E.V., Features of interpersonal relations of left-handed people. 2014 C 170.

3 Bragina N.N., Dobrokhotova T.A., Human functional asymmetries. 1998 C 240.

4 Roze N. D., Functional asymmetries. motor asymmetry. 1970, p. 361.

5 Chuprikov A.P., Identification of left-handedness and psychohygiene of left-handed children. // Guidelines, 2011, p. 191.

6 Internet resource: http://www.gazeta.zn Left hand right

7 Internet resource: http://www.labirint.ru Recipe books and some goods for left-handers and about left-handers

8 Internet resource: http://www/leftorno.ru Left-Handed Shop

9 Internet resource: http://www.lefthandwriting.ru Stationery for left-handers, pens, pencils, rulers, erasers

Annex A

Annex B

left-hander detection

Annex B

Performing the same type of work right-handed and left-handed

door opening

Using a cream spoon

Left-handers write with their left hand, right-handers with their right

Lefty tries to write with right hand

It happens, unfortunately, and so - in order to wean a child to write with his left hand, he is tied to a "naughty limb" to a chair. Also in the parental arsenal are shouting, slaps, punishments for using the “wrong” hand. All these punitive measures are justified by two phrases: “What if you don’t understand differently?” and "We are trying for him" ... Is it really so important - to be right-handed?

Will you be forcefully nice? Lefty or righty?

You can spend a lot of effort and eventually retrain a child from left-handed to right-handed. However, only a few children endure this lesson painlessly. The rest receive various violations. First of all, the emotional sphere suffers. Children retrained to be right-handed become irritable, quick-tempered, capricious, whiny, sleep poorly and lose their appetite. Neurological abnormalities also appear - these can be stuttering, nocturnal, skin diseases, various neuroses. Difficulties also arise in mastering writing - left-handers write with their right hand much more slowly than their peers, with visible physical effort, which is why they often complain of fatigue in the hand and increased fatigue. In addition, when writing, they have to pronounce the words they write several times. And in primary school they are unlikely to get good grades for "handwriting". Scientists have also proven that retrained left-handers write with their right hand, making many mistakes. And if they are given the opportunity to return to the "leading" hand, then after a while the number of errors is sharply reduced!

Over time, of course, retraining takes its toll, the neurological disorders in the child are smoothed out, but do not go to the end. And the biggest danger lies in the fact that if a stressful situation suddenly arises, a left-hander retrained to the right-hander “on the machine” will act, giving preference to the left hand, but it may not be sufficiently trained ... Therefore, it is worth considering once again whether you are left-handed or right-handed child in fact before retraining.

To fight or not to fight?

An open fight against left-handedness can lead to deplorable results for a child's health. But this does not mean that all attempts to develop the right hand should be abandoned. Still, our world is adapted for right-handed people, so it is not uncommon for left-handed people to give up prestigious work because of their inability to cope with machinery, machine tools, and special equipment. Another thing is that it is not necessary to forcefully retrain a child. And if he shows open negative emotions to any form of retraining, you should not insist. Change your task - from "retrain the child to be right-handed" to "to develop the strength of the child's second hand as much as possible."

Moreover, today we are all slowly becoming “equal-armed”, since both hands are involved when using a computer. And it’s stupid to ask what letters you type easier: “r-n-o-l-sh-d”, located in the competence of the right hand, or “s-u-s-m-h-ts-i”, for which "answers" the left.

Strength or weakness of the second hand?

Do you know that in psychological practice the inactive hand is used as an instrument of powerful relaxation and solution of many personal problems? So, right-handed people are offered in any situation when they start to get nervous, write their thoughts with their left hand, and then throw out the sheet, which should help relieve internal tension. Drawings made by the other hand are also widely used. You can use this psychological technique when raising a left-handed child.

do together

Teaching a child foreign language, parents and the child often agree: “Tomorrow we speak only English” (for example). The same can be put into practice with respect to the right-left hand: “Today we do everything together with the left hand, tomorrow with the right hand,” etc. draw something with your right hand, and do the same task with your left hand to be on an equal footing, and then compare the results. This is especially important in order not to frighten the child by the fact that he cannot do something with his right hand. Let him see - you may also have something embarrassing to go out with your left! Tasks can also be attributed to the competitions of the “other” hand - “who will quickly eat soup with the other hand, dial the number faster with the other hand, wash the dishes with the other hand”, etc. Such barely noticeable, but daily workouts will serve well. Firstly, they will remove the psychological barrier, and secondly, they will give rise to the development of the strength of the second hand. After all, wise parents who decide the issue of the left-handedness of the child without violence, children grow up as comprehensively developed personalities, able to use both their right and left hands. Yes, they will give preference to the left hand, but if necessary, they will use the right hand, but in a way that no right-handed person can use the left hand.

Need a consultation

Many children up to 3-5 years old have long periods when they use both hands for playing, drawing, without giving preference to either of them. In this case, the child should be unobtrusively offered to use his right hand more often. If left-handedness is obvious, it is necessary to consult a pediatric neurologist so that the doctor can exclude the possibility of a disorder of the central nervous system (in which left-handedness can be one of the leading symptoms). After making sure that everything is in order with the child, the decision on further behavior in the matter of a left-hander or a right-hander remains with the parents: you can be patient, or you can ... with ropes.