Mirror writing = dyslexia ???

Mirror writing is nothing but writing letters/numbers in reverse direction, they look normal when you see their image in mirror

All thanks to Bollywood, most of us contribute mirror writing to dyslexia. While it might be one of the symptoms, there are many other reasons for this

Mirror writing is not limited to similar looking letters such as “b” and “d” or “6” and “9” but kids can mirror any letter or any number. And its not just horizontal, they can also mirror them vertically. There is something called “Mirror Reading” where kids read “C A T” as “T A C” 

Do you know, it is not unusual for toddlers/preschoolers to write mirror images while they are learning to write? It is believed that as many as 30-40% of kids write mirror images in the initial stages of writing. They correct themselves in the due course of time 

Having said that, it is also necessary to keep a track of such activities. They might be early signs of something else trying to get uncovered

Image courtesy: Internet

Major Reasons why kids write mirror images:

One of the main reasons of mirror writing is kids not having completely developed direction sense. Take any 3D physical object in the world, say book.  Book still remains book even if you see it from any side. They know this phenomenon and apply it to writing too. So if your child writes “d” as “b” and if you ask him to read what he has written, he would still call it as “d” since for him/her the letter still remains same even if the direction is changed. 

Another reason being, most of the letters in English are towards right. So in case the ones are in left, are also written in right by kids.

Hand dominance also plays a role in it. There is a high chance of left handed kids writing mirror images 

Ways to deal with it

It is okay for kids to write mirror images till 7 years. After this, it is definitely alarming and one should seek expert advice. If kids are younger and still doing it then one could do following things to help them correct themselves 

1. First of all, no need to make an issue out of it. If you do, chances are more of kids developing hatred towards learning and you will end up increasing the problems. Also, do not discuss this in front of him/her
2. Read and write, more and more. The more they see, the more they learn. But make sure you don’t do it with the intent of teaching it explicitly. Do it only fun way and involve your family members in it so that the kid doesn’t feel targeted. Design fun games around it and this will only encourage kids to learn more
3. In my opinion, it is also a good idea to speak to class teacher and make her aware of it
4. Always sit side to side with your kids while reading/writing so that your directions/usage of hands become same. It will eliminate their confusion about direction

If you are following the posts till now, then you might realise the importance of hand dominance and that everything is related to that. I would sincerely urge to keep the natural hand dominance intact and not get influenced by beliefs that say a particular hand dominance is good/acceptable! 😊

Bilateral Coordination Skills

Bilateral coordination or crossing midline is an important skill in physical and mental development. By definition, bilateral coordination means ability to use both sides of the body simultaneously in a controlled fashion

Body’s midline is an imaginary line which divides body into two parts, left and right. Roughly, spine can be considered as the midline of our body. Good bilateral coordination indicates that brain is able to pass information from one side to another as needed  

This includes touching one elbow with another hand, drawing a horizontal line without switching hands or putting on a left leg sock using right hand. While these activities seem very obvious and does not need explicit thinking, kids who have not decided or don’t have dominant hand might face difficulty doing these activities 

Activities/Actions that need crossing the midline help in developing bilateral coordination

Signs of poor bilateral coordination:

1. Swapping hands in the middle of doing task which needs crossing midline
2. Poor fine motor skills, issues while working with pencil
3. Lack of focus and difficulties in following multistep instructions 
4. Difficulty in tracking visually moving objects 
5. Trouble in reading a complete line from a book  

Activities to improve bilateral coordination:
     
       There are many fun ways to do this. Few examples are painting walls with big size brush, watering plants with one hand, washing cars, scissoring, beading, lacing etc.

      So next time when you want to practise those skills,  you can also try putting on some nice music and do cross toe touching or cross knee to elbow touching with your child for 10 mins! Bonus - you might get flat abs 😜😜 Well not flat abs literally, but reduced fat layer on stomach can be expected 😂😂😂

Ambidexterity - what exactly it is?

 Ambidexterity is a very complex topic and since there are very few people who possess this quality, the amount of research done in this area is comparatively less.  In this post, I would try to state common facts depending upon what I have read and the way A does things 

 Ambidexterity loosely means ability to both the hands equally well while doing any task. While this is the truest state but usually it is not the case. Majorly, ambidextrous people do a few tasks with one hand and other tasks with another hand. The point here is usually they do not have a single dominant hand.

As wikipedia says, the word "ambidextrous" is derived from the Latin roots ambi-, meaning "both", and dexter, meaning "right" or "favorable". Thus, "ambidextrous" is literally "both right" or "both favorable"

Though it has been widely known that ambidextrous people can write with both hands, it might not be the case always. If we see the sportspersons who are ambidextrous then majority of them write with one hand and play games with another hand. Since there is no particular dominant hand.

Not going into scientific terminologies but according to a few scientists, the part that connects both halves of brain is slightly larger in ambidextrous people than right handed ones, which makes communication between two halves more efficient and thus ambidextrous people are tend to be smarter and fast learners

Image Courtesy: Internet

Ambidextrous people most of the times do well in music, arts and sports. They might not do as good with conventional academics. While they say that language center in brain mostly decides handedness, ambidextrous people tend to find it difficult to learn languistic skills. I guess that might be because they do not have any dominance in particular.

Ambidexterity makes communication between two halves stronger, there are people who deliberately practise being one. This is definitely beneficial. The starting point of this could be practise writing with your non dominant hand. Also, it is usually a good thing to encourage kids to do more of bimanual activities. One should definitely do this if the kids are clumy. This also can help brain development of both halves

Thats all for now. More on bilateral coordination, mirror writing and such things in upcoming posts...

I never thought I would be able to have my own blog and be consistent about it….until January 2018 when I started my first blog. Those who know about my #MommyDiaries posts on Facebook might have an idea about that 

And now, here I am starting yet another blog with a motive behind it. This is about a journey of a mother of an ambidextrous child 😃 

We recently discovered that my son A, who has just turned 4.5 years in January 2018 has this rare quality.

For those who do not know, being ambidextrous roughly means ability to use the right and left hands equally well. Only about 1% of world population is naturally ambidextrous. Remember Viru Sahastrabuddhe from 3 idiots writing with both hands? Well, thats kind of ambidextrous 😉 

If we talk about real world then Maria Sharapova, Cristiano Ronaldo, Albert Einstein, Mahatma Gandhi are a few who are/were said to be ambidextrous 

For me this is absolutely overwhelming!

It took me 30+ years to actually understand that the world is made convenient for “right handed” people. And hereon, I am all set to see things from A’s perspective 😀

Intention behind sharing this is also to make people aware of situations/challenges kids are put in these days. I would be more than happy if this helps some parent and/or child in some way. I would also like to mention that the observations/conclusions which I would be sharing through these are just my perspectives and may not be generalised. These opinions come from the reading I have done/am doing and sessions with experts. 

This is really a complex thing and hence opinions are bound to differ person by person