left/right confusion

Post Reply New Topic

When I was a kid I learned right and left by thinking "which hand would I use to pick up a pencil?" since Im right handed that would be my right hand-thus I learned right from left in grade school. I dont know if everyone learns that way or it was just me but I had no problem with it.

My cousin who's presumably NT and is a physics professor, but is still at the stage that "right and left have no meaning".

He said one trick folks told him that helps to learn the difference is to remember that "when your driving a car: your wife is on your right, and your wife is always right!"

Another high functioning friend - a lady scientist who had been diagnosed with apraxea decided one afternoon to teach herself to use her left hand instead of her usual right hand.

Her grown daughter discovered her washing the dishes with only one hand and asked her what she was doing. She replied "im learning to wash dishes using only my left hand."

He daughter brought the rest of the family down to watch her and then asked her to "tell them what you are doing." She repeated what she said before and everyone fell on the floor laughing. The one hand she had been using was her RIGHT hand.

I've read stuff about NVLD (nonverbal learning disorder) and found that confusing left and right is quite typical of people who have more severe forms of it - it's something to do with visual-spatial processing problems.

http://www.ehow.com/how_5777851_identif ... order.html

Some of them even get lost in buildings and have difficulty using and remembering maps. Also, as a lot of people seem to know, NVLD and AS commonly co-occur (as with AS and ADHD) so if you have Asperger's you might show some typical NVLD difficulties. So what you're going through definitely isn't unrelated to psychological disorders.

I have to write a "L" or "R" on my hands to remember. But I'm ambidextrous so I blame it on that.

I'm dyslexic too and often i confuse the left with the right. (other times i confuse some words with their antonyms or reverse letters or numbers)

I have a terrible time with right and left. I know my right from my left, but if someone says something like "look at the image on the right side of your screen" I'll almost always look on the left side, and vice versa. I have to be very careful when giving directions because even though I see the path in my mind and will know that a right turn needs to be made, I will say "turn left". Family members have learned to double check with me before turning or changing lanes. I am still learning not to get irritated, because at the time I say it, I am absolutely sure what I'm saying is correct. then I realize my mistake. Oddly, my wayfinding abilities are very good-- I almost never get lost. I also have a very difficult time doing things in a mirror.

When people ask me if I'm left- or right-handed, I usually answer, "Neither. I'm equally klutzy with both hands." But seriously, I get my left and right hands mixed up. I have to look for which one has the bump on the middle finger from holding the pen (the right). And I have to rotate the map to match the direction I'm facing.

I've tried to teach myself to write with my left hand but I can't seem to hold the pencil the way true lefties do it. But I type better with my left hand and make the most typos with my right hand and I can't fasten watches and things with my right hand, so people think I'm a leftie because I wear a watch on the right.

Now I'm having trouble helping my little boy get his shoes on because when he's facing me and I have his right shoe, I'll put it on his left foot.

I realize this is an old thread. It started a couple years ago, then there was a break, then it was made more recently. I've barely read the OP's starting post and have skimmed everything before this year.

But I often mentally pick up an imagenary pencil or make a fist as if I am holding one. I'm left handed.

It might have to do with weak right-left connections, it might also have to do with the idea that the eyes see the world upside down and the brains somehow flips it correctly... or so one of my ridiculous theories come from.

I can relate however in my own way. But I was in an ROTC program where learning left and right were essential - we even drilled on it. Even so, my sense of direction is terrible. I get lost very easily. Something that does not help is that I am ambidextrous - I write and draw with my right because I learned to do so and am faster, making it convenient. My left is simply lacking from practice in that department. But everything else, random. Ping-pong is the most noticeable, because I switch hands ever 30 seconds or so. The most bizarre thing though is that I can/have a tendency to read things in reverse - I have read an entire book backwards before just for the fun of it. Verbally flipping words happens to, but this might have nothing to do with it.

I've always had this. What I used to do was actually form the letter 'L' with my left hand and then write out 'achlan' (spelling "lachlan" - which is my brother's name) with my right hand. I'd automatically use the correct hands for this because I was right handed (so when I went to write the right hand did it and so the left hand formed the L shape, if that makes sense). Then I know the L hand is the left hand and the other one must be the right hand. This was time consuming but worked. I'm a bit faster now at figuring it out (don't need to spell out the name but can just make the L shape or even just visualize it in my mind), but I still occasionally revert to this technique.

I often confuse left and right. I can tell my left from my right hand, but when I'm told "go to the right" or "look to the left" I have to think first. When I set the table I'm often not sure where to put the knife and where to put the fork.