Left handedness

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I am the only left-hander in my family. And I'm female. I'm also the only one with an ASD in my family. I view this as strong evidence that my individual left-handedness is a direct cause of abnormal brain development and fetal testosterone.

I'm left dominant ambidextrous.

Only changing the channels of the remote control or picking the telephone i use the left hand but for most things its the right hand.

I'am also ambidextrous. The only other person who I
have met in person who said they were ambidextrous
was another aspie who I met at a support group. I have looked at
studies on fetal testosterone, this seems to make some sense
there seems to be a connection with this and dyslexia too.

20 Autistic children and 25 NTs doesn't seem like a very large sample. It's an interesting study but does anyone know of anything larger?

I know that Ambidexterity and Schizophrenia are related. I've heard it being a symptom of a motor delay as well.

Statistical significance. The odds of getting 13 out of 20 random people being left handed are too low to be simple chance. When you have a group of autistic people in which 13 out of 20 are left-handed, and compare them to a group of 25 NTs, three out of 25 being left-handed, you have enough to see a pattern.

Some more studies:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6580656
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/medical-education/ ... Autism.pdf

That first link mentions that left-handedness is associated with an abundance of delayed echolalia. Interesting.

I have also have read that ambidexterity and Schizophrenia are related
(thanks for the reminder iratherbeatree)
I have no doubts about this, I believe this is why Cannabis was reclassified
in the UK.
I know that in the past when I smoked it (twice in total) that
the effects mimicked Schizophrenia and seemed to last for weeks
after. I was told back then some people should just stay a way from the
stuff, I took this to hart.

I'm left handed. I was diagnosed almost a year ago. I have a grandfather who is left-handed but he is not the one who I think also had Asperger's. I can do a lot of other things including writing with my right hand but my right-hand writing isn't as legible as my left-hand writing.

True, but there is always the possibility of sampling error. A bigger "N" always is better for studies such as these.

No argument, but one of the links I posted references multiple studies that show similar patterns. Those studies supported the increased percentage of autistic people not being right handed.

I found the connection to delayed echolalia rather interesting, because delayed echolalia is something I do. I don't recall having a specific label better than "kind of like echolalia, but not quite."

Oh, I'm a big believer that neuropsychiatric disorders are linked to left-handedness. I mainly responded about the small "N" simply because I can't see how a bigger "N" couldn't have been done in a study about something like this (suspected link for so long)!

Yeah, the lack of a bigger N is rather difficult to excuse.

It is historically true that left handed individuals were forced to write with their right hands until fairly recently (King George VI, king of England between 1936 and 1952, father of the current Queen Elizabeth is an example of this treatment). It is based on the fact that for milennia the right side was associated with "goodness" and the left with "evil" hence the word "ambidextrous" meaning "two right hands" for people who are equally skilled using both hands. The latin word "sinister" meant "left" but has now come to mean "evil".

I myself am left handed and have no hard evidence supporting or refuting the idea that left handedness is more frequent in those on the autism spectrum, however there might be something to be said for it if it turns out the premature birth theory for the cause of autism is true. It has been shown that due to brain damage caused by premature birth (the same brain damage that may be responsible for autism) many premature infants are left handed. Of course all that means is that autism and left handedness are "co morbid" as it were, not that autism causes left handedness.

I think left handedness is common in other conditions. Schizophrenia was mentioned, and I believe it may also be true for ADHD.

So yes, it is likely more a matter of correlation than causation.

Yeah, left-handed. My mother is too.