Why are so many Aspies left-handed?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm beginning to realize that there is a reason why I bat left and do most things left (and identify with lefties) yet write with my right hand. I can remember vividly being told in grade 2 that you have to hold your pencil in you right hand and only your right hand. Back then (in the late 80's) public schools were no longer operated by churches but we still had religion (only Christianity), said the Lord's Prayer and said Grace before eating so that's the likely reason why. As well, my mother admitting she kept moving my crayons from my left to my right hand because it was the "right" thing to do. Ditto to using fork and knife in the right hand, because I was taught to do it that way although it took a long time to catch on.

It also explains (even better than AS) why I had atrocious handwriting and spent weeks doing writing practice every single night. As well, it explains why I have a amazing glove (left) hand in sports that few can match.

I can do almost everything about equally well with both my hands. However, I have preferences. I mostly write with my right hand, therefor it just recieves more training in this aspect, but I can write okay (I don't have abeautfil handwriting anyways) and without concentrating much on it with my left hand, too.
I button shirty with my left hand only and hold glasses with it, too.
When I was little I used to hold my fork in the right and knife in the left hand but my mom wouldn't let me do this after a while because something about it was wrong to her. But switching hands to do something isn't very hard for me; it's not 100% as convenient but not a struggle either.

Funny, i write and feel stronger in my left, but I do lot of things with my right as well.

Not ambidextrious though.

Lefty and an Aspie Girl!! ! I can write with my right but it isn't that legible (not that my left handed is)!

I'm right handed...

Does that mean I'm in the minority?

I mainly rely on my right hand.. To do all the writing, throwing, etc. I'm just not used to/comfortable using my left hand.

I write with my left hand... if you can call it writing.. it's more like expressionist modern art

I'm really glad computers became popular as I was growing up!

Totally, entirely right handed. Always have been. My parents pushed me to use my right for everything for as long as I can remember. Didn't help, my handwriting is still very messy, unless I consciously neaten it when I write. I type whenever possible, because my thumb gets tired very quickly when I write.

If your observation is correct and there is a disproportionate number of lefties in the autism community (i.e more than 10% as seen in the general population) it could be correlated with the theory that premature birth is one cause of autism. Many premature infants end up being left-handed (myself included) because the right side of the brain apparently develops faster than the left in preemies (or so my mother the ex-nurse tells me.) It would definitely be an interesting thing to investigate.

i identify as 'cross-dominant'; most things i do i can do with either hand, but do have a preference for one or the other.
for example, i write almost exclusively with me right hand, but i cut my food with left (but putting butter on my bread is right again)
i trow the same with both hands, catch with left, and deflect with right, i prefer to drink out of glasses/bottles with left, but mugs and cups, i hold right; i control my phone (reading texts, selecting numbers, playing mobile games) with left; but if i write a text, it's right again...

I'm a leftie, mostly, but I get a lot of hand cramps so I'm practising writing with my right hand, just in case.

(by mostly I mean there's a few things I do with my right, but not enough to call me ambidextrous)

I was left handed as a child but my mother forced me to be right handed.

I'm right handed.

Really? I'm right handed too. But I'm physiological born left-handed.

The left-right hand debate is another one of Nature vs. Nurture. I mimic other people, and I mimicked mom enough to be right-handed. I soon got so good that I was deemed 'right-handed'.

However, according to studies, your dominant hand should match the larger foot that you have (because most people are born with a slightly larger foot on one side). My left is larger, though. Do you think this may signify me as left-handed?

Left-handed people, for some odd reason, are likely to do better in school (even with an ASD). Some of the most successful people were aspies as well as left-handed. However, these people weren't ridiculed because of social issues- rather, they were simply treated as 'shut-in geniuses'.