kylamonkey Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 I have a specific question about left-handedness/child development that I thought I would ask the wisdom of this board about. My 3-yr-old niece is left-handed. No big deal, really. But she's doing something interesting/intriguing/concerning. I have no idea if it's related to her being a lefty or not. For christmas, we got alphabet magnets for the fridge. I spelled out her name, Audrey, and her sister's name, Elsa. Within a few hours she had gone over and rearranged the letters to spell: yerduA aslE So that was interesting, and so I tried it again, with other words she knows. I watched as she came up to the fridge, made an exasperated sigh (in the manner that little kids do) at seeing the words as I had arranged them, and proceeded to switch the letters around! She has also spelled her own name by choosing the letters herself from the whole alphabet, and wrote "yredA". She missed the "u" but still placed the letters backwards. She has only just turned three and is just learning the alphabet, how to write certain letters, and can recognize only about 10 words. She's not reading them, for example she usually thinks the word "airplane" says "audrey". She regularly sings the alphabet song "A B C X Y and Z, I know my abc's" which is adorable. I digress. Does anyone have any insight? Is this something I should be concerned about or an early indication of dyslexia (this is what her dad thinks, and is not my opinion)? Is it even related to handedness? I have no knowlegde in this area. I just want to say that I'm not concerned so much as curious. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psychoswim Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 I have no knowledge either, but I don't think it's related to handedness, at least I've never heard any of my lefty friends talk about that. Maybe she just needs time? And I've never heard of dyslexia affecting whole words like that, but again I don't know much at all. It's certainly curious! Looking on the web, sounds like it's not that infrequent with young children and should sort itself out. If not, then it's worth investigating. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
axialpac Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 Did you ask her why she arranged the letters that way? I'm curious about her response. Read this: http://www.todaysparent.com/backwards-writing (it says it's not a concern) Excerpt: Backwards writing or reversing letters worries some parents because they’ve heard it can be a sign of dyslexia and future reading and writing difficulties. Backwards writing is probably not a concern, says Penney, without other warning signs, including: • Your child is still writing letters backwards after grade one. • He also has difficulty memorizing sequences, such as her home phone number, her postal code or the alphabet. • Your child writes letters or numbers in an unusual way: for example, writing an eight as two circles on top of each other rather than in a continuous line. This might be normal for a younger child, but if it continues after age seven or so, you might want to investigate further. • He often calls objects by the wrong name — for example, when shown a picture of a volcano, he calls it a tornado. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cerena Posted January 2, 2012 Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 You could have a Da Vinci in the making Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylamonkey Posted January 2, 2012 Author Report Share Posted January 2, 2012 You could have a Da Vinci in the making Yeah, exactly. Lol. She's a bright little thing but I'm not sure I'd go that far. Da Vinci wrote in mirror images and he was left-handed, that's where I'm getting that idea from. Thanks for the responses, people! It helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
psqu Posted January 3, 2012 Report Share Posted January 3, 2012 • Your child writes letters or numbers in an unusual way: for example, writing an eight as two circles on top of each other rather than in a continuous line. This might be normal for a younger child, but if it continues after age seven or so, you might want to investigate further. I definitely write my 8s this way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TracyK Posted January 3, 2012 Report Share Posted January 3, 2012 At 3, certainly not a problem and in fact, quite common to reverse words. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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