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9 years
If a kid is left handed and he's been forced to write with his right hand, will that affect his school life?
Nov 4, 2014
2nd opinion

Dr. Zakia Dimassi Pediatrics
The handedness of a child and its effect on skill acquisition is a source of concern for parents. Encouraging toddlers to be right-handed is not advisable because:
(a) many children do not develop a strong hand preference until around age 7 or 8, and
(b) forcing a child to switch the hand s/he prefers to use might induce serious learning problems.
Scientific and clinical research findings have demonstrated that babies and toddlers commonly have a preference for one hand. The typical course of development for handedness is often complex and highly plastic, i.e., prone to vary and change. A child may have preference for one hand, then may later develop a preference for the other hand, then be ambidextrous for a while, and then switch back to the first hand preference.
While some children develop a hand preference relatively early on during development, it is not reasonable to expect to notice a stable preference for one hand to develop until the child has started writing frequently enough. This is explained, in part, by the fact that handedness for writing is related to hemispheric brain specialization for language abilities; the exact mechanism for this observation remains poorly understood. Some evidence exists showing that some left-handed children who have been forced by parents or teachers to switch to the right hand, have consequently developed various learning disorders, including stuttering, difficulty learning to read and/or write, etc. (Jones 1918; Lauterbach, C.E. 1933a, 1933b; Bryngelson 1935; Johnson & Duke 1935; Clark 1959).
As such, it is NOT recommended to force children to use their right hand if they have a left hand preference; parents and teachers are encouraged to let children develop their own hand preference, at their own pace. The best approach to follow with a left-handed or ambidextrous child is to be supportive, find a left-handed friend or family member to teach them skilled manual tasks, and try to obtain whatever left-handed items needed for the child to perform well and safely.
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