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For a long time left-handedness was considered almost a manifestation of inferiority. The main cause of pressure on the left-handers was concern for their social adaptation in a world where the prevailing right-handed. But what are the advantages of left-handers compared with right-handers? In recent years, accumulated a lot of knowledge that can develop in a Lefty what is given him by nature.




What is the reason?


The theory of functional asymmetry of the hemispheres of the brain takes a long time, scientists minds.The first study of the brain right-or left-handed people held in 1871, the English anatomist Ogle. He found that the brains of left-handed mirror-symmetric brain right-handed person. But the accumulated further material is not allowed to reveal significant anatomical differences that could explain the differences in the functions of the right and left hemisphere in general and the choice of leading hand in particular. Accurately explain the nature of left-handedness is still there. Most of them share the version that the choice of working as a right or left hand is dependent on two genes (one gene determines the hemisphere that controls speech, the other - which hand will control the "verbal" hemisphere). For the role of heredity is the fact that the probability of left-handers with right-handed parents does not exceed 2% if one parent is left-handed, then it increases to 17%, and both parents left-handed - up to 46%. Air Force News Agency reported on a study conducted by Swedish researchers, in which found that pregnant women who did ultrasound in late pregnancy, 32% more likely to have a left-handed.
Full or partial


There are several types of functional organization of the two hemispheres of the brain:


Absolute right-handed - 42%. They have dominated the left hemisphere (top right hand, foot, eye, ear, such people have 95% of the speech center is located in the left hemisphere), they characterized the verbal-logical nature of cognitive processes, the tendency to abstraction and synthesis;


Absolute left-hander - 8-10%. With the dominance of the right hemisphere (opposite, top left-hand, foot, eye, ear and speech center in the right hemisphere). They are characterized by concrete creative thinking, developed imagination;


The absence of a pronounced dominance of one of the hemispheres (ravnopolusharnye people) - 48-50%. It's either right-handers with evidence of left-handed or left-handers with evidence of right-handedness (by leading the eye left-handed people, but by hand - a right-handed, etc.).
What's the difference?


It is assumed that the differences between the functions of the cerebral hemispheres are as different ways of processing information.


This right-brain people (southpaws), emotional, expressive, rich intonation, body language. There are no special alignment, there may be hesitation, confusion, unnecessary words and sounds. Easier for them to dictate the text to write about. Left hemisphere (right-handed) is easier to write than to dictate. As a rule, left-hander - a holistic nature, open and straightforward in expressing feelings, naive, gullible, suggestible, can subtly feel and experience, easily upset and cry, come into a state of anger and rage, are outgoing and sociable. Often operate on the mood.


Among the more common left-handed writers, journalists, artists and organizers. Among the left hemisphere - the engineers, mathematicians, philosophers and linguists.


Right-handed people often emphasized rational and rational, which is based on a formal-logical approach.They are reluctant to write a lot and it is easy to memorize long texts, their speech is grammatically correct. They are characterized by a heightened sense of duty, responsibility, integrity, the inner nature of the processing of emotion. Often occupy administrative positions, but they lack flexibility, immediacy and spontaneity in the expression of feelings. They prefer to act according to a pre-defined patterns, stencils, difficulty restructuring their relationships with people.
paintings - left-handers are large, dark palette of colors, a large number of gradations of light, global nature of the plot. These artists include Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Surikov. Works by these artists hit the freshness of hemispheric vision, emotion, expression, dynamics. For artists, the severity of right-handed inherent form, graphic quality images, cool colors. It's - Picasso, Kent, Leger.


For composers, left-handers include Wagner, Debussy, Scriabin, Tchaikovsky, Chopin, Schumann. For right-handed - Bach, Handel, Mendelssohn, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Shostakovich. In relation to the music of our left brain behaves like Salieri, and the right - like Mozart. By ravnopolusharnym geniuses are Leonardo Da Vinci, Mikhail Lomonosov.


But only the artistic abilities are not limited to left-handers. They are characterized by an original way of thinking, because they are not very much: just the majority does not think so. That is why left-handers among the many creative people who generate a lot of ideas (eg Bill Gates).
Age dynamics


As a rule, immediately after the birth of a child one does not think he is right handed or left-handed. But then time goes by, and the baby begins to take things mostly with his left hand, then - and cookies, and a spoon stubbornly embedded in his left hand and a pencil ... and how my mother did not shift the back - the child does as he sees fit.


That's how a child's brain: the right hemisphere develops evenly, and the left - jumps, first jump of development - in two years. It was at this age can be the first to say: "My child is left handed." But the dominance of the leading arms may be conditional. Often the child "chooses" his hand vaguely. "This' left-hander is obtained if the right hemisphere determines the top left-hand and eye. But if the lead is the right eye, or when the master left eye - right hand, obtained a "hidden" left-handed. But we can talk about it after 4-5 years when the child begins to wield a pencil. This is the age of the child's parents, even right-handed mirror often seen drawing and writing (left eye gives the "inverse" information to the right hand). And it is not that at some point in the child "transitioned" (and retrain Lefty - it means stepping on his health, personalities, abilities - write about it now, all!). At this age, is second jump of the left hemisphere. It happens all the children in different ways. And if the choice of hand-eye occurs when the dominance of the left hemisphere - obtained "handedness" - a veiled or overt. Psychologists say such children "right-brain."That is, those in which the dominant imagery of thought, emotion, motor activity over logic, rhythm, "unfolding on the shelves" of the left hemisphere of the brain. With increasing activity of the left hemisphere is the emergence of complex concepts, the development of abstract thinking, the ability to read and write.Here, again, ahead of the boys: as early as six years in the left hemisphere, they may be more active than girls. Therefore, some are beginning to read even in 4-5 years. In males the functional activity of the hemispheres is more polar in nature and the predominance of one of them can be seen as early as 6-7 years.


However, sometimes the increased emotional, impressionable boys and artistically gifted differentiation of the brain is the same path as that of girls. In these boys long maintained right-hemisphere specialization of the brain. They do not always write well, missing a letter, not appends the word. The stumbling block for them - the multiplication table. All this is gradually aligned to the 3-5-y class. If you take into account the age characteristics of the development of thinking, then to 9 years old the child is not the end of the formation of interhemispheric interaction. In other words, the child is still in the "crossroads": how to choose a style of thinking. However, children's thinking in any case closer to the right-hemisphere. Thus, while teaching children aged 4-6 years must take into account features of "hemispheric thinking."
Features of learning


It is now known that the brain "specialize." Thus, while learning to read right hemisphere can perceive the whole word, as the image-tone, or as an image-image. A left hemisphere analyzes the sounds of them in syllables and syllables of the - of the word. It is also responsible for the use of grammatical rules. However, the meaning of "saved" just in the right hemisphere.


When training is the left hemisphere directs the child's behavior affects the ability to perform a task, to be disciplined in class, controls the ability to do something, if you want, but do not want to. Unfortunately, the hemispheric children harder to learn, they have a large motor activity, the behavior is worse than that of peers, which are clearly defined with the leading hand or eye. Often they are more mobile than their right handed peers. It seems that they have tucked away somewhere in a motor, they sure have a lot to make it. They are - passionate inventors.And often themselves believe in their fantasies. Therefore, left-handed parents is more difficult: they are more stubborn or "explosive" emotionally unstable.


Because of the way lefties have to carefully choose the technology of training, given that the preparation for school the child should not only include reading, writing, math. Early immersion in the world of signs and symbols (reading, writing, numbers) uses the work of the left hemisphere of the brain, and thus, children with a predominance of the right hemisphere, it is difficult. At the time the child becomes overloaded with more moves nervous. Often attempt to use the advanced abstract logical, verbal map of the world does not lead to the development outpaced left-hander, and slow down. A difficulty in the preschool age sometimes lead to uncertainty about the child himself, or to protest - the reluctance to learn, even neuroses.
Another difficulty left-handers - a relationship with space. Mirror by writing, memorizing sequences (days of week, month), the child hard to navigate in the notebook (yes, he does not notice these cells), not to mention the calculations in a column in the lower grades. Reading often causes hemispheric student difficulties in understanding the content. Such a child can not learn something, not knowing, or having lost the thread of reasoning. It is better to learn if a certain sequence of actions.
How to determine Lefty?


Many psychological tests to determine the leading hemisphere offer first determine the leading arm, ear, eye, leg. And rightly so, because studies show that the prevalence of itself hemisphere in left-and right-handers are insignificant, and in cases of stress, this difference disappears. But the brain can not learn all by himself. He needed information. Other parts of the body supplying the untreated brain the information it uses to gain knowledge about the world. Eyes, ears, hands and feet are also teaching bodies, since these sensors are finely adapted to sense the outside world to the brain. All of these body parts are essential to the learning process.


But between the hemispheres of the brain there is a special feature: they control parts of the body cross: the right hemisphere - the left eye, left ear, the left leg and arm, and, conversely, the left brain - right eye, right ear, right leg and arm. It would seem that this should imply that if the right hemisphere is leading, we should be leading all four parts of the body. In fact, a healthy person may be unilateral, only three parts of the body, such as eye, ear, hand - the left and the leg - right.


How to identify the leading hemisphere? The most common tests developed for adults, offer to find out which parts of the lead, and the predominance of the parties - define "hemispheric".


To determine the dominant eye is invited to "aim", selecting a target and looking at it through a kind of fly - a pencil or pen. Children with a dominant left eye trying to follow "right," because often in these novice "readers and writers," there are permutations of letters and even syllables in reading and writing.


To determine the leading ear to listen to adults offering a set of words through the headphones (and earphones in each of the other words are transmitted). In fact, many adults remember the words from the right and left ear is determined by the "dominance" ear.


Hand dominance is determined by three different tests:
Need to twist your fingers. In this case the top is always the same finger - the leading hand.
Twist arms. At the top (on the other hand to the forearm) is the leading hand.
Place your hands flat floor. Clap. On top of leading hand claps.


If, after investigation it turns out that you have the right-hand dominant, the left hand - perhaps you hidden "Lefty."


The dominance of legs is measured as the average stride length. "At home" watch: on what side you fall asleep, what a leg cuddle. The leading leg is usually "a body", because the body thus "dampens" redundant pulses from the very active part of the body. If you go to sleep on his right side - then you have a lead right foot on the left - the left. If you sleep on your back or stomach, then ask someone else to watch on which way you turn first of all - the right or the left.


Of course, if you have already defined their hemispheric, we would like and the kids' test. " Even for very young children can do it with fun games.


Leading Eye Make some bright small toys, put in a box in which there is a hole for one eye. Let the kid looks into the hole and guess what a toy is hidden there, and you fix what eye he looks at it. Change the toys. Leading eye will spy more often.


Leading the ear Prepare a few toys with different sounds: a bell, beeper, a rattle, a box of peas, watches, etc. Tie a child's eyes. Do not give your child the subject in hand (to avoid recognition by touch), give him a "sound", placing him in the face of a baby. Watch how the child is trying to listen to the ear (in which direction to head turns).


The leading hand is also determined by several choices of subjects: Offer your child toys and objects (including a spoon, a pencil), watch what hand he takes them. However, be prepared for the fact that the subjects taking the baby with his right hand, and when writing it is more convenient to write the left. If a kid does not choose a leading hand (unfortunately, it may take up to 9-10 years), early let us write with both hands (in turn) .. If a kid ambidexterity (oboeruky), it is better to learn to write right. If Lefty - consult with experts, as to put a pencil, how to train his hand to writing.


If the majority of tests have identified a key left-hand side of the body - the kid right-hemisphere. If the leading right-hand side of the body - left hemisphere.
How to help Lefty?


If your child has a leading left-eye and right hand leads, you can help him learn to read. Colored pencil mark the letter with which to start reading a line drawn from top to bottom, fix the direction of the eyes when reading. When the mirror writing of letters - ask your child to construct along the lines of the letter from the sticks of different lengths and semi-circles, or trace the letters written by the dotted lines with arrows showing where to start and where to lead the line. Well with the child to pronounce the plan of writing (eg, first draw a straight line slightly inclined, then the end of rounds and dorisovyvaet circle - turns the number "6").


To develop fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination of left-handed turn into a daily routine exercise, sculpture, drawing, embroidery, origami, etc. Take care of the rational mode of the day, after sinistral child, as a rule, excitable and easily tired.


Protect the Lefty. Let the child will be left-handed, but so free and confident as a right-handed. Give free rein to his hands, and he learns a lot to do with both hands.


Galina Stukanog