Pencil grips to help handwriting how to#

There seems to be a hereditary element but handedness does not appear to have a simple pattern of inheritance. There has been much debate on the exact role that genetics have to play in establishing handedness. Left handedness is found in more boys than girls and it appears to run in families. A recent worldwide study confirmed that 10.6% of the world’s population are left handed (2). So most of us in the world fall into either the right handed or left handed category. Getting more information on ambidexterity will help to encourage hand dominance in children for functional use. This is extremely rare and only 1% of the population are considered truly ambidextrous. AmbidexterityĪmbidexterity is the ability to use both hands equally well for all tasks. Most left handers have some degree of mixed handedness.

An example would be a left hander being able to use their left or right hand to use a computer mouse. Mixed handedness is the term for when a person uses either hand for a specific task. This can be seen in younger children as hand dominance can become established anywhere between the ages of three years and five years. Ambiguous handednessĪmbiguous handedness refers to when a child changes from one hand to another hand during the performance of a task. mixed handedness for more information on these two concepts. These are important terms to be aware of when it comes to using a set hand in handwriting tasks. This means a child can still use their non-dominant hand for some tasks.īelow are some common terms that come up when addressing left or right handedness, or the mixed use of hands in tasks. True handedness When a person uses one hand for more than 70% of tasks this hand is considered their dominant hand. While most people believe that a person is left or right handed, there are many different types of handedness (1).

Pencil grips to help handwriting how to#

This motivated me to review some of the recent research on left handers and put together some tips on how to support left handed learners in the classroom. I am use to working with the occasional left handed person but at the moment I have SIX left handers on my caseload.