The Leonard Lopate Show

ive heard there is a connections between being left handed, artist, and gay

I would love to understand why I'm right-hand dominant for certain tasks (ie, writing, using a knife), left-hand for others (hitting a softball, swinging a golf club)and perfectly comfortable using both hands for things like painting.

I've heard there is a connection between being left-handed and being born prematurely, any truth to that?

And, why is being left-handed recessive?

My husband and I are both left-hand dominant, yet only one of our three sons is left-handed. Is "handedness" truly an inherited or recessive gene, or is it something else entirely?

Similar to comment 2 - as a toddler it appears I was left-handed, but at some point in elementary school I switched, without being forced, to being right-hand dominant (writing). Yet I continue to do certain tasks with my left (carrying bags, eating). Is there any explanation for that?

My mother has always claimed that my left-handed father "made" me left-handed despite the fact that I was a natural rightie (not forcibly, of course, but because I emulated him). I'm ambidextrous in some things, and she sees this as evidence that I "should be a rightie".

Is there any evidence that a child would change handedness by emulating a particularly important adult, or is her claim (as I've always suspected) an impossibility?

I find it fascinating that handedness matters so much to some people (re Emily's comment and her mother feels she "should have been a righty" as if she were somehow robbed of an advantage), and the labels of right=good and left=evil which pervades so much of our culture...

I think handedness discrimination needs to be recognized. As a lefty, I had to train myself from shaking hands with my left hand because I was told that it was rude to shake with the left. Why?

Also, at the formal dinner table I am still confused about whether I'm offending people by the hand I used for various things.

Not that I lose sleep over it, but why should I have to worry about this at all?

The only thing I do with my left hand is write. All sports, cooking, cutting etc I do with my right hand.

Ecept I recently discovered that my natural instinct is lefthanded when I deal cards. What am I???

My mother is a fantastically gifted person who has two very pretty handwritings, a perfectly symmetrical face (she's beautiful even at 88) is an ambidextrous waercolorist and sang with Eugene Ormandy in her young life. The nuns tried to make a rightie out of her but she refused to relinquish her left. She's also really funny. Skaters have innate spinning and jumping directions (a very few can do both in both directions, and the one i know who can is also artistic)

I have a severe tremor from a forceps breach birth, and I’m right handed. I’m 60, so I’ve lived with it for a long time. I can’t eat righty, or do brain surgery or watch repair. I’ve adapted to do many things lefty out of necessity. However, I can’t write lefty despite trouble writing right handed.

I am a physician and would estimate that at least 50% of my medical school class was left-handed. A significant number of NASA scientists are left-handed. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Mayor Bloomberg, George H.W. Bush are all left-handed. Is there any link between left-handedness and intelligence.

I'd be interested in a discussion of lefty penmanship. In particular, why do some lefties write with their hand in a claw, while others do not. (I do not.) I'm of the opinion that it has nothing to do with avoiding smearing the ink, seeing the page better, etc. It looks to me that claw writers also have terrible penmanship, as though they do not have very good fine motor control in the fingers.

Am I onto something?

how does preference relate to gravity sports: surfing skateboarding, snowboarding;

where the left foot is usually put forward is typical. having the right foot forward is called "goofy" (preference to handed-ness seems to be corelated to

As a left-handed child, I was given a scissors made for lefties - which I promptly held "upsdie down" as I had when cutting with my left hand.

Means?

I was told I am a 'classic' leftie.

What does that mean?

Thank you.

Is it true that left-handed persons mat have had a twin that never fully developed in the womb?

I have an extremely bad sense of left and right (for example, I'm very clumsy and uncoordinated and after more than 40 years of typing, I haven't been able to master touch typing). I believe that I have dyspraxia although I haven't had a professional diagnosis by a neurologist or learning disabilities specialist. As a small child, I showed no clear preference for my left or right hand, chose my left hand in kindergarten, but then changed to my right hand in first grade. Are left-handed or ambidextrous people more likely to have dyspraxia?

Playing baseball as a kid, i started out as a lefty (catching with my right and throwing left; batting lefty) but later switched.

i was not forced to switch. it just happened.

Any explanation for why I might have switched handedness in baseball?

Is there brain imaging dominance research being done where one might apply to be a subject? I am a natural lefthander who was "converted" - and currently write with both hands [more fluidly with the right], draw lefty, shave lefty, etc., etc., etc. I am quite curious about this.

What about sleep studies that have shown some animals resting one half of their brains at a time - perhaps for reasons of predator/prey - and the guest's idea of social reasons for left-right brain. He sited fish group cohesion.

I was reminded of the Radio Lab show on sleep where it was reported that a group of ducks sleeping would have one duck on either side sleeping with one eye open, and sleeping with one half of the brain resting. And then turning around halfway through to rest the other side of the brain.

Or dolphins sleeping one half of their brain so the other half could keep them swimming and breathing...

fun show, thx!

I was paralyzed by a bad concussion (was hit by a car) when I was 14, and my left side was paralyzed. I had been right-handed. After rehab, I returned to being a rightie. But when I was about 30, I experienced a "late effect" and had a bad hand tremor that affects fine motor skills, especially writing. Now I write better with my left hand. The tremor is worse with my right hand. The doctor says the damage was worse on the right side, but also on the left, which supports your theory that both hemispheres control both hands.

In response to Margaret's cooments (#13): I am lefthanded and slant my paper very extremely to the right so that I write almost upside down. I always assumed that the ways lefties slanted their paper had to do with whatever compensation was necessary when learning to write (it was difficult for me) but was recently told that the paper slants indicate two different kinds of lefthandness - one is rightbrained and one is leftbrained. I don't know which one is which but it is something I am interested in learning more about.