Anyone know when left or right handness is 'settled'?

I mean, I know it can still be in doubt up to school age, but Tabitha is using her left hand ALL the time and has been for some time to draw and pick things up etc etc 

Is it likely she'll be lefthanded like her ma?

 im sorry i dont know how old tabitha is (love the name) dominic is 3 .5 and use's his right hand for everything now and has done for a while. hth

 Isobel (3yrs) has always shown a preference for using her left hand - in fact I don't think she has ever drawn or used her right hand for cutlery etc.

 

 

she's nearly 20 months. thank you! 

 thinking back to that age he did use both hands but still should more preference for his right.

 

 Kiernan is 3 and for a long time, up to about 2 he favoured his left hand, now he just can't decide, he used both. I think the not decided is affecting his writing/drawing skills as he just seems really clumsy with a pen/crayon, I am sure once he decides which hand he prefers he will come on in leaps and bounds.

 

My brother told me on Saturday that he's coached 4 and 5 yr olds who have started out left-hand dominant but then switched, but it's usually by about 3 yrs old. 

He's suggested we tie Ysella's right hand behind her back for the next few years to give her a natural advantage for tennis.  Then again, he's also suggested putting her on a stretching rack to make her taller, so I think he's joking

Sorry, this isn't really an answer to your question, but my LO is 8 months and uses everything with his left hand - I hope he continues to do so, as both my hubby and I are lefties!

 Reading my baby brain development book (exciting stuff!), apparently a preference starts to emerge after 2 years....until this point most babies are ambidextrous.

My pregnancy book says that it is determined when they are still in the womb.

This is such an i nteresting question. You can be L- or R- handed at many different tasks. You would not be left handed at everything. Our brains develop over time, and we master different tasks at different times.

So you may be left-handed at certain tasks by a certain age, and right-handed at other tasks - the handedness emerging as and when each task is mastered.

If you think of drawing with the left hand as an indicator of handedness, then you could say this is settled at the time drawing is mastered. If you think of writing with the left hand as an indicator of handedness, then you could say this is settled at the time writing is mastered. It all depends on how you define handedness. Because it is not black and white (different hands may be preferred for different tasks), it is hard to say when it is actually settled.

Also, our brains are highly adaptable and handedness can change over time with practice. And of course, some people can do some things equally as well with either hand (like lmsunshine's son)

I think it is an unanswerable question unless we are specific about which activities we mean.

I think it is a fascinating area because it also tied up with superstitions. Even the word for 'left' has negative associations (eg it is sinistro in Latin, something like gauche in French which means clumsy.awkward). Over time, people have been discouraged from using their left hands so these people have had to adapt.

Clozzer:

My pregnancy book says that it is determined when they are still in the womb.

It may well be determined in the womb, and we only 'see' the results once the skills are mastered. I guess even if we are programmed a certain way, we can alter the outcome by discouraging use with one hand, and encouraging use with the other (like Crantok's brother says).

 

Edited as I forgot to quote clozzer

I seem to remember zoay saying something like this ages ago. Its usually at about 2 that they start to show a preference, although children do often have a dominant side for a while beforehand. O is 2 and I've been pretty sure he's right handed for a while. He's got a little friend who's definitely left handed although they are both fairly ambidextrous with things like cutlery.

It's been said on here before that before around 2, if babies show a strong preference for one hand over the other then that may be a sign of a problem and they should be checked out.

Left handers tend to be more lateral than right handers, that is, they tend to be able to do more with their right hand, whereas right handers tend to be less lateralised and able to do less with their left hand.

I'm strongly left side dominant. I can do things with my right hand, but that's only because I've had to, because society is geared up for right handers.

My left foot is bigger than my right, for instance. Same with my calves and my hands.

 

There are lots of theories about handedness. Certainly it can change. A brain injury can result in a change in the dominant side. Left handedness certainly has a genetic component, but it's also linked with birth traumas,

 

My knowledge of the research is about 10 years old now though, so I don't know what advances there have been since then.

 

 

Eleanor is left handed and showed a strong preference for using her left hand from the very beginning. We were certain that she was a leftie by 20 months.

I m mostly right handed, but like Ruby Tuesday says am left handed for some things, using cutlery being one.

I'm not sure that a child who is genuinely left handed can be successfully encouraged to swap - my father was also a leftie and had a really miserable time at school being forced to write (and do everything else) right handed... or maybe by school age it is too late.

 

Just as an afterthought, for any lefties out there, is there anything Eleanor might need to make life easier (eg left handed scissors, are they worth buying?).