my 49 year fascination with left handers. are you a lefty?

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I am left-handed.

In past lefty threads that were polls, it seems there is a higher number of lefties on the board...in ratio to the general population....if that was worded correctly.

When you were younger, did anyone ever try to make you right hand dominant? My parents did this with me. It didn´t work with writing, but I do actually do some things with my right hand- (like cutting with scissors). This may explain the mirror writing you do, which goes form right to left. But if not, at least it shows your brain is working differently than the average right handed person, I think.

I don´t know if there is any correlation between handedness and creativity; this is just what I keep reading, so I´m basically just repeating what I´ve read. But this may be very simplistic, as knowledge of the brain and how it works is only in its infancy. In any case, putting that aside, I do still wonder if there is a creative, artistic version of AS that presents a little differently than the more well known version. Based on the artistic types I´ve come to know here on Wrong Planet, that would seem to be the case.

I'm very, very left-handed. All I do with my right hand is open jars/bottles and deal cards, but even this is due to me being so left-hand dominant. This is because my right hand has no ability whatsoever, so I cannot grip cards or jars/bottles with my right hand. I also use a computer mouse with my right hand, but that's because the contours only fit in the right palm. My mom says that, when I was a baby, she would always put my spoon on the right side when I was in my highchair. But I would always reach over with my left hand and eat left-handed.
-OddDuckNash4348-

I don't know which of my hands is dominant. I can still remember when, in elementary school, the teacher introduced the topic to the class...I couldn't identify with it at all. I could remember using either of my hands for any task which children of that age are introduced to.

Now I use whichever hand is accommodated for by whatever the task is. I often type with just one hand, and will switch hands at will.

When I see people with "lefty" musical instruments, it just seems ridiculous to me since each hand still does the same amount of work. Some of the best left-handed musicians I know play with standard instruments.

I do most of my skateboarding with my right foot closer to the front. I started snowboarding later in life (at age 18) and can do it equally well with either foot as the front.

I don't know which of my eyes is dominant - maybe the left. The self-test for this seems dependent on whichever eye the person wants it to be.

This topic doesn't fascinate me, and anytime I see someone mention that left-handed people have characteristics that go in a different direction from those of right-handed, my skepticism is running on high. There's no way to quantify those traits.

I am ambidexterious.
Some things I do right handed, some things I do left handed and some I do both fairly well.

I can bat and pitch both hands, can write both hands. Working on cars, I am left handed when getting bolts loosened by hand, left handed dominate doing dishes, lefty in the bathroom... both hands at using power saws, drills, etc... I box either let or right... Being right or lefty depends on what I am doing...

I'm left handed but kind of ambidextrous I use my left hand for most things but my rigt hand is capable of most things though it feels strange.

I have four children with my youngest having Asperger. Myself and all my children are right handed except my youngest who is a Lefty! He did not show a preference for either hand for much longer than is usual, and by the time he was a year off beginning school he was using his right at the table and both with pencils, but seemed clumsy with his right hand. So I encouraged him to use his left and it was definately the right decision. He is now 8 and has lovely handwriting and is very very artistic with his drawings.

Oh and that mirror writing thing.....my son did that! I found it so amazing that he could write so perfectly both back to front (not just the words but each letter) and also he could do it upside down . He would present me with something he had written and I couldn't read it however if I held it upside down and in the mirror it was absolutely perfect! He does not do that anymore now he is in yr 2 but I am sure he still could if he wanted to.

I am a lefty and I've always had terrible hand-writing - is there a connection between these?

Yes there is but some people who left handed have good writing.. I think the connections come from alot of lefties are on the spectrum.

I write and draw with my left hand. Since I do everything else (eating, cutting, brushing my teeth, using any kind of tools) with my right hand, I'd have to be considered right-handed anyway, I suppose. Or ambidextrous. As a child, I used to draw holding a crayon in each hand and using them at the same time. Also, I often confuse left and right. Sometimes, I accidentally use mirror writing. It looks exactly the same to me. (And the left-right-problem is also one of the main reasons why I should never try to get a driving license, it would be downright dangerous.)
Handwriting: I've always been told my handwriting is very beautiful and original and expressive but difficult to read. I had a teacher who loved my handwriting and always asked me for help with calligraphy on greeting cards and stuff like that, and another teacher who refused to accept texts in hand-written form from me. A matter of taste, I guess.

Those polls were probably biased though. If a poll asks "Are you left-handed?", people will generally answer if they're left-handed and not answer if they're right-handed. The same thing happens with this topic: lots of left-handers are answering but right-handers are probably not posting in it. I think it's called selective bias or something like that.

I have a feeling that if we do a proper investigation the amount of left-handers would be around 10%, the same as for the general population. I'm a right-handed Aspie by the way.

I'm right handed but fit the list.

My brothers and father are lefties (three in one family) and do not fit the list well.

I have some odd discrepancies.

I write right-handed, and have done for as long as I can remember. (Although, I was told for many years that I held my pen 'wrong' and 'clumsily' anyway - I used to hold pens at an odd angle, and quite close to the point - and I was told I didn't hold a knife and fork the 'right way' either). I also play guitar right-handed, and have done since I first played at about age 14.

However...I do some things in an 'awkward' way that suggests I might be trying to do them like a lefty. I was forever being told off by my needlework teacher for stitching 'the wrong way round', and I couldn't make out what she meant I was doing wrong. I also had an odd experience at a medieval fayre when my husband, who's an old hand at live RPGs, decided to introduce me to archery. I automatically picked up the bow in my right hand and tried to draw it with my left. And I've done that since I used to make bows and arrows out of sticks in the yard as a kid, and I'm absolutely crap at doing it the other, 'nomal' way round because it feels so odd.

I read somewhere that you can tell what hand is your naturally dominant one by interlocking your fingers and noticing which thumb falls on top. For me, that's the right. So, I honestly don't know. I wonder if I was a lefty who was made to write with the other hand, but that wouldn't explain the guitar. And my parents wouldn't have forced me - I know this because my dad was a lefty, he was forced to change hands at school (in his day, they used to slap you with a ruler), and he never forgave them for it.

Is it perhaps possible that handedness (and the brain hemisphere dominance that goes with it) might be not an either/or but a spectrum?

Gee, funny, when I do that my right thumb falls on top. But I am left handed, actually...

Like you, I also have been told that I hold my fork strangely. I sort of grab it. I eat with either hand too, I don´t seem to have a preference.

lol, hi morgana...............i always ate with my eating utensils in a fist like position, lol

god they thought i was hopeless, rofl