Ambidextrous Children May Be Mentally Challenged
by KYW's medical editor Dr. Brian McDonough
It may be a great help to be ambidextrous if you want to be a Major League baseball player but, according to some studies in pediatric journals there could be potential issues.
Children are considered ambidextrous if neither hand is dominant, where they switch between using the right and left hands for activities such as eating or writing, or they use their right hand for certain activities and the left for others.
According to the reports, which looked at eight-year-olds and sixteen-year-olds, ambidextrous children are more likely to have attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), problems with language and schoolwork, and other mental health issues than right-handed children.
These children may be more prone to language difficulties because the structure of the brain is normally specialized with the left hemisphere of the brain dominant in right-handed people. Ambidextrous individuals, have differences in the typical dominance pattern of the brain.
