Ambidextrous children more likely to do badly at school, study finds

25-1-2010

Ambidextrous children more likely to do badly at school, study finds

Research shows ambidextrous children twice as likely to have attention deficit

Ambidextrous children are twice as likely to do badly at school and suffer from attention problems as right-handers, a study published today shows.

­Researchers from Imperial College London tested 7,871 children's language, behaviour and academic skills at the ages of seven or eight and again at 15 or 16.

They asked the children's teachers to assess whether they were below average, average or above average in reading, writing and ­mathematics.

The research found that the 87 who were ambidextrous were twice as likely to have language difficulties and perform poorly at school aged seven or eight.

By 15 and 16 they were twice as likely to have attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder – which affects up to 5% of children – and to continue to have more language problems than their right-handed peers.

The researchers, whose study is published in the journal Pediatrics, suggested the right hemisphere of ambidextrous children's brains was weaker than that of right-handed children's brains and this could make them more susceptible to attention problems.

"Mixed-handedness is intriguing," Dr Alina Rodriguez, who led the study, said. "We don't know why some people prefer to make use of both hands when most people use only one.

"Our study is interesting because it suggests that some children who are mixed-handed experience greater difficulties in school than their left and right-handed friends.

"We think there are differences in the brain that might explain these difficulties, but there needs to be more research."

A study by academics at Bristol University in 2008 found that left-handed or ambidextrous children performed worse at school than right-handers and that left-handed girls fared worse than boys.

One in 100 people are ambidextrous. (Guardian)