Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Ambidextrous and Gifted?

This discussion arose from another thread and I was wondering if it has any relevance among yourselves and your children.

DS7 is ambidextrous. I never thought it had much significance, except perhaps in slowing down the development of his fine motor skills. He started writing late at close to 5yo. Initially, he could write with both hands, but he gradually settled on the right. He eats with his left hand though, and when on the scooter, his dominant side is the left (pushes off on the right). We know he's ambidextrous also because it runs in the family.

In the last 12 months, we met with another 2 kids who are at the extreme end of the gifted spectrum (one is tested to be PG, the other is a strong candidate). Both are ambidextrous. I know one other child who is E/PG and not ambidextrous.

The coincidence is remarkable, but given that the sample size is tiny, I wonder about the broader incidence. Are any of you or your children ambidextrous? The other commonality is that, perhaps because of the ambidexterity, writing skills have been slow to develop (true in the three cases I know). This could be bogus science, but I'm really curious.

In a hopeless* attempt at balance :-) nobody in my family is ambidextrous (DH is strongly left handed, DS and I are right handed although not very strongly so).

*[I suppose, if we knew what percentage of the population self-identifies as ambidextrous, and how many active posters' children are represented on this board in total, we might have some chance of spotting how many it would take to be a surprising number of ambidextrous people in this thread...]

Our ds8 is ambidextrous, also writing with right hand and eating etc. with his left. I would say he is HG/EG

We have had concerns for him re dyslexia and some research says there is a relation between handedness, directionality and "wiring" differences - e.g., more crossover between left and right brain hemispheres.

He has managed to figure out spelling and reading mostly by memorization (bright guy!) but has retained his handedness, so there it is.

I was one of those children who desperately wanted to be left handed... so am vicariously enjoying ds's "differentness"

Hi, yes we have ambi people in our family, going back at least to one great grandfather. He was very athletic, used his lefty abilities to advantage in sports, also pretty smart but not sure about log.
I am ambi, HG, lefty for writing and righty for sports (large motor stuff, I guess).
Ds9 seems to be somewhat ambi, righty for writing but he is faster with his left hand on coordination tests. (MG)

I have found this a disadvantage when trying to learn left from right; he was slow with this as well, but no big deal.
Dd4 seems hardcore righty already; she is probably EG.

My PG brother wanted to write left handed and did so without difficulty but he was really a righty, not sure if that 'qualifies', he was/is just odd.

My EG husband is lefty-lefty-lefty! His PG sister is righty all the way, from what I know.

Thanks for starting the thread Blob. I will be curious on what data you collect.

I know my aunt is ambidextrous and can write with both hands but is truly left handed. I suspect that the era she grew up in is partly why she is able to write with both since they pushed for children to write right handed back then. I remember my grandmother saying that she never forced her to use her right hand and was glad she didn't when information came out about damage it does when children are forced to use their right hands but I still wonder if maybe while in school my aunt was pushed.

As for my daughter, she is left handed and from a very early age favored her left hand but now she is solidly left handed when she writes. When she eats she uses both hands, but leans more towards her left hand. I have caught myself on occasion reminding her to use her left hand but know it really is up to her and what is comfortable.

As for throwing and kicking she predominately uses her right side.

Now for the slowing them down in fine motor skills ... we haven't experiences this. DD has been writing letters since before she turned one and drawing about the same time too. We noticed early on that her fine motor skills were very advanced for her age. But again ... not 100% sure DD is ambidextrous. Right now I will say she leans that way.

more on this - mostly re dyslexia, but interesting!

http://books.google.com/books?id=7J...=handedness%20and%20dyslexia&f=false

oh, and fwiw, ds10 is determinedly right handed, but expresses his considerable intelligence in quite different ways from his ambidextrous brother.

Interesting feedback here. I don't think we can come out with any hard stats simply because, as CollinMum says, we don't have the parameters (total number of respondents vs total pool of forum members, not to mention that some may not have seen the thread at all). This is just for anecdotal sharing, and I must say there are quite a few interesting thoughts here.

Evidently, some ambidextrous kids have no difficulty wiring to both sides of the brain at all, contrary to what I thought. And I've always suspected my son was dyslexic although he's been cleared. But he still reverses letters, numbers, ideas even. Left to right, right to left, is the same to him. When he's alert, its alright. But when he's tired, he switches back into default, which is reversals.

Interesting, all this!

My daughter is left-handed and ambidextrous. I found this study (read the bottom for specifics) and it says that almost 50% of profoundly gifted are ambi.

http://www.gifteddevelopment.com/What_is_Gifted/pg.htm

"48.9% were ambidextrous at some period of their development."

I don't know if I would agree with this since it has been proven that all children go through a phase of ambidextrous during infancy and early toddler years but chances are parents aren't paying that much attention to it. I wish I had the article and I will definitely look for it and if I can locate it, post it here. But what I remember from the article is that there is a specific brain development that is linked to the preference of left or right hand usage and as infants go through major milestones such as rolling over, sitting up, crawling (if they do this part) and walking; their preference for hand switches. IE. If they are grabbing everything with their right hand and then master sitting up they should switch for a little while to their left hand. When DD was a baby I watched for these changes during her major milestones and she did just as they described. Found it very interesting, but I already knew about the information from the article and was watching for it, but most parents would not be paying that much attention to it.

Grandpa, PG, ambidextrous
Dad, PG, righty all the way
Me, PG, mostly lefty
DC19, PG, E2, mostly lefty

We seem to fit that trend very well. The others in our family have been a mix of righties and lefties (mostly MG).

DS6 started out left handed and then at about 3 changed to right handed (I was bummed. I am left handed - the only one in my immediate family). I can write with both, though I prefer left handed. And I do most everything else, besides throw or kick, right handed.

Dd11 was somewhat ambi when younger, but is a right handed person now. She and I can both use our left hands and do for things like eating, but we both write right handed. We had an OT who evaluated dd at the suggestion of the GDC tell us that her lack of preference for one hand over the other in stringing beads, for instance, indicated a pathology/dyspraxia at age 7.5. I'm not tremendously convinced of that, though. Dd is probably HG, but not PG.

My DD7 is a gifted and a little ambidextrous. As a toddler, I put her on the computer and forget she was a lefty. She never complained. She still does the mouse with her right hand. She has always been very adaptable.

Just had a teacher/parent meeting today and discovered that DD cuts with her right hand, though she is left handed and writes with her left hand. And interesting point onthegomom. My DD has been active on the computer since before age 2 and we have never changed the mouse up for her and she has never complained.

DS9 MG definitely some of this - writing with left, throwing ball with right.
DS7 HG no sign at all. Totally a right handed kid.

DS11 who is more normally developing (possibly 2EMG, though maybe just ND) eats and brushes his teeth left-handed but does everything else right handed. DD8 who is HG used to play sports left handed, but switched to right-handed when she was 6.5, and does everything else right-handed. DS6 who is MG is completely right-handed.

Interestingly, I've always heard that left-handed people have a higher rate of LDs. I don't know if this would apply to ambidexterity, though.

Interesting anecdotal discussion!

One thing I forgot to say - DS colours with both hands. It's quite funny, watching his eyes dart from time to time as he handles 2 colours at a time, reaching out with one hand for another colour while continuing to colour with the other hand!

My entire extended family (which includes varying levels of gifteds) is right handed, except for my niece who is a lefthanded gifted artist and me who is ambidextrous. I write right handed, but everything I do naturally is left handed (archery, computer mouse, track hurdles) plus I am "left-eyed" and "left eared." Since I am a pianist and a surgeon, the ambidextrous ability is very helpful!! This is a fun thread

I don't know if ambidextrous is linked to gifted but my daughter is ambidextrous and gifted. It took her quite a while to decide which hand to write with; she settled on right handed. We forgot about all the questions until she got really competitive with figure skating. It turns out she spins and jumps lefty!

My 12 year old writes with his right hand, but he was ambidextrous in Kindergarten and he could write equally well with both hands. He often uses his left hand to eat, especially if he is at the computer. He uses the fork with his left hand while he uses the mouse with the right hand. If he uses his left hand to eat at the table, he sometimes bumps into me since I am right-handed and I can just ask him to switch hands.