Handedness, Awarness, Coordination

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Greetings!

After having another talk with my psychatrist, he told me it was common for people with Asperger's to have altered body-control and dexterity when compared to neurotypical people. He told me that most of his patients have poor manual dexterity, poor balance and tend to drop things, bump into things, ect. He also told me that, even thouth he does not claim it has statistic value, it is intersting to note that about 1/3 of his patients are left handed, whereas the overall percentage of lefties is about 10%. Also, he mentioned that almost every patient has very high sensual awareness and many had astonishingly fast reflexes.

I know that most of these parts are true as far as I am concerned: I have lousy manual dexterity and shaky hands, and bumping into things is one of my biggest hobbies. I also have reduced pain perception for that matter, and an over all reduced tactile sense, which why I tend to sometimes break things with my hands because I grab them too tightly, and on the other hand drop them equally often because I didn't have a secure grip on them.
As for sensual awareness, I think it is the source of one of my biggest flaws, because I get easily overwhelmed with sensations and fade away when it is too much.
Keeping Balance (standing on one leg) is not that much of an issue for me, but I am trained in this regard.
Lastly, regarding handedness, I would consider myself to be ambidextrous. I don't have a main hand, though I tend to do some things more often with one than the other (manly out of habit), I can do most things with most hands without much difference (even writing, but my penmanship is lousy either way.) However, I have the distinct feeling that I am natural lefty and have just been forcably trained to become right handed by my mother. The reason why I think this might be true is the fact that some day, we were watching TV, a report about handedness. When the scientist said that it was innate if you were right- or left-handed, she really got mad, screamed at the TV and told me that it just depended on the parents, in what hand they gave their babies toys to play with, and pens to write with. Have to dig into that somehow later.

What about you?

My wife was amazed to see me tie knots with one hand--my left, though I normally write with my right. I do have very quick reflexes, which sometimes enables me to catch stuff that I drop!

Well, I only drop things if I don't think about it for a while. I am far LESS prone to bump into anyone. Some seem to TRY to bump into me, so I try to constantly take that into account, and give a wide berth. My balance is also OK, and I at times may be the only one that can walk on a plane or boat, not touch anything, and not fall. I prefer my right hand. I DO have high sensual awareness, TOO HIGH, and USED to have FAST reflexes.



I ALSO have a reduced sense of pain. I am often tolld things will hurt, and I may even LIKE it. My tactile sense isn't bad, but I used to sometimes break things. Part of that is that my grip is strong though.



It is CRAZY! A person may say "this is too hot", you may burn yourself, and I handle it like it is COLD! HECK, I have run water SO hot that my skin turns RED, and residue QUICKLY melts off of items I may be cleaning, etc... They may speak of a burning from some chemical, etc..... They may be sshocked if I get a cut and it doesn't hurt.

BUT... They think I am JOKING when I say a sound or light hurts me. I'M NOT JOKING!



Same here! Although my penmenship can be better right now with my right.



That's a crazy theory! GEE, I had erector sets, lincoln logs, electronics, etc... How would I be expected to develop? As for pens? Most,..perhaps 99.98% are AMBIDEXTROUS! I HAVE seen some with like triangular grips that may be contoured such that they would be more comfrtable with one grip or the other.

Last edited by 2ukenkerl on 04 May 2011, 5:41 am, edited 1 time in total.

Well YEAH, if I drop stuff I usually catch it. One reason my reflexes aren't as fast as they used to be is because of the flinch game, or whatever you want to call it. It has ingrained a kind of double check. It used to be event? REACT! NOW, it is event? valid? should I react? react!

If something drops, it is more definite, so a lot of that query is cut out.

I am ambidextrous. I remember even my kindergarten teacher expressing frustration because she never knew whether to give me the righty or the lefty scissors. Today I can do most things with either hand, including writing, but I prefer to use my left. There is a small number of things I do with one hand or the other but not both.

Until I overcame it by an inordinate amount of practice, my handwriting was always messy, and my teachers always complained about it. My marks would be lower as a result, even though otherwise I operated above grade level.

I was much slower than the other children in learning to do things such as throw a ball, jump rope, or ride a bicycle, and I was always by far the slowest runner in any group of kids. Gym class was always a miserable time for me, since I had the coordination of a drunken walrus. It still angers me to look back on those days and recall the number of times I was told, "You're just lazy."

Running into things? All the time. Once I entered the room where my mother was sitting, and as I passed through the doorway I lost my balance slightly and bounced off the door jamb. Noticing the drink in my hand, my mother then asked me, "Is that wine?" No, it wasn't, only water, but I can understand why she asked.

PS: The bit about "it depends on the parents," as to whether a kid is right- or left-handed, that's bull.

I am ambidextrous. I had the habit to use mainly my right hand, but i didn't need much time and effort for learn to use left hand (it took half hour). Even legs and eyes have very little lateralization. Just for ears my left ear is strongly dominant.

Yeah, I think both of my mothers parents were right handed. SHE was ambidextrous, but favored the left. My father is apparently right, and I am basically ambe=idextrous and favor my right.

Yes, that is what I told her, but she always thinks she knows things best. I asked around some of my older friends, and two of them who are natural lefties, but about 15 years older than me, had the same experience, that their parents and grandparents always took the things from their left hand when they were drawing with crayons or stuff like that, and put them in their right hand. They had the chance to ask their parents / grandparents about it, and they told them the exact same load that my mother tried to tell me. The reasoning behind this "education" shocked me a little bit. I can understand that two generations ago, people had a lot of different oppinions on how to raise children properly, but man, hearing things like "lefthanded people are handicapped", or the fear that left-handedness might be a sign of homosexuality sure puts things in perspective. My favorite one was this: "We are a family from Prussia. Everyone uses their right hand here. There is no such thing as a left-handed Prussian!".

The only real difference between left and right are my eyes, as I am colorblind for different colors on each eye: one eye has trouble seeing red, the other has trouble seeing blue/green.

I might add that when I was young, my coordination was really bad--sometimes I'd get picked for sports teams, but often I wasn't chosen. But, with lots of practice I'd say my coordination is now about average.

I'm totally unco-ordinated. I can't drive and can't work with mirrors at all. If I try to fix my hair, whilst looking in a mirror, I get really confused. Funnily, I'm a good dancer and can follow choreography really easily, but I started classes when I was 3. But, I have some balance issues and also have position vertigo, which comes and goes. My manual dexterity is poor - I remember trying to wire a plug at school to the disgust of the teacher. I'm clumsy. I knock over cups quite regularly. I fell out of the door last week and landed on the wooden deck. I thought I must have broken something, but I'm all in once piece. But, my reflexes are very fast. If I'm fast-forwarding through commercials I can put the speed way up until close to the position I want. My husband always tells me that I'm going to go past it, but I never do.

I'm right handed, but can write quite well with my left. I heard a theory about left handedness that I found interesting: it comes about because the person was originally an identical twin and the right handed twin died very early on in their mother's pregnancy. Sounds morbid, I know, but it makes sense. Left handedness is much more common in a pair of twins (20% of all twin pairs have one right handed twin and one left handed twin), whereas left handedness only occurs in 10% of the general public.

Thats like reading of myself, really!
Have quite bad dexterity, for example, when i have to shake hands, its really hard not to squeese to hard. And if i have something in my hands, a cup of koffee, glass of water , or some fragile things...
I really have to consentrate not to wobble in to things or persons. and also i seems to have nearly 2D sight, and assess distance via sice of objects. If standing on a ladder, working, im quite certain i have to climb it every two minutes, to collect something i'we dropped. and i always has plenty, of bits, with me! Also I'we got really fast reflexes, and has chocked quite a few colleagues, because of that.
I write with my right hand. But am i supposed to work with small objects, i preferre left hand. And when handling tools, it depends on how the subj im working on is situated.

Even though I cannot say whether I find it reasonable or not, it sort off matches my family profile. I take strongly after my mother, and like I said, twins and triplets run in my mother's line (I had a twin that died before birth, so does my mother, and my grandma was triplet, with her being right handed, her enzygotic twin sister was left-handed.)

I'm also extremely clumsy and uncoordinated....I think I was told I'm dyspraxic (I'm not sure if it was a diagnostic sort of comment or if it was an explanatory sort of comment). It's quite frustrating, because I can see how to do things, but I can't make my body move the way I want it to.

I drop things, bump into things, can't judge the space between me and other people/objects.

I can relate to not feeling pain--I often say "ow" even when something doesn't hurt at all, because it seems like what someone should say (after, for example, tripping and falling down a short flight of steps). Yet tiny scratchy sensations cause me pain. It's weird.

Re: ambidexterity, I tend to write more with my right hand, but most other things I do with my left. There are some things I can do with either hand and some things I can only do with one of them.

Oh yeah! - Thanks for reminding...

Pain: Have often taken the closes of (going to bed ) finding out theres bruces/cuts that i can't remember how in earth... And on the other hand, being touched gently, feeling like being stuck by a needle.
Thats one of the "things" ill never learn to see the logic in...

Lefty, dyspraxic, clumsy, yay me.

Right-handed at writing, drawing, handguns, melee weapons, jacking-off.
Left-handed at tooth brushing, boxing, pool, rifles, one-hand pull-ups.

Poor reaction time and senses. BND is too much. Next to no night vision. Horrible word-processing (hearing). Late and blunt reaction to touch / pain. (My co-workers tend to suddenly smack each other in the testicles out of nowhere. They always comment on how I don't flinch. They have no idea that before I even process what is going on, the threat is already over. And even if they do smack me for real, I feel like they always miss, or it just doesn't hurt as much as it should. But I seem to be very vulnerable, or at least, irritable, to too-hot or too-cold climates.) But I have an excellent sense of smell. I think.

Kinesthetic awareness is abysmal. A lot of spilled drinks and angry men, and a lot of elbowed breasts and angry women. I bump into a lot of people in crowds, so I have to be extra vigilant in dining facilities, else I'd smell like food three times a day. I've also accidentally knocked-out several people.

I also have considerable problems with balance and locomotion. I cannot ride a bike if my life depended on it. I've been running regularly for the last 12 years, and I'm still the slowest runner. I also the slowest walker. Probably because I walk and run really awkward, as I have to constantly think about my form and keep my balance AS I try to keep up with everyone else.

I've never seen a therapist in my life, so I have never been diagnosed with anything.

Last edited by Palakol on 07 Jan 2012, 9:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.