LEFT-HANDED CHILDREN SHOULD BE LEFT ALONE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17832, 28 April 1926, Page 15

LEFT-HANDED CHILDREN SHOULD BE LEFT ALONE.

INTERFERENCE RISKY; LIKELY TO LEAD TO ABNORMALITIES. (Special to the "Star.'*) AUCKLAND, April 27. A remarkable characteristic of children in schools lias been noticed by infant mistresses in Auckland during this year. It is the great increase in the number of left-handed children, and also the fact that the children always seem to write upside down, as if they saw everything reversed. This matter was brought forward at the close of the meeting of the National Council of Women by a delegate of the Teachers’ Association, who asked leave to consult Dr Mildred Staley on the subject as to whether their eye-sight was affected. Dr Staley explained that it came from a disturbance of the motor centres, which were very close to the sensory centres of the brain, and parents should be very c&Tefull not to press cn children whose left-handedness was their form of self-expression and selfdevelopment of other ideas, as it often brought on stuttering. The speech centre was on the left side and muddle occurred when the right centre was upand in many cases it was known to lead to stuttering or abnormalities Professor Hunter had discovered that 4C per cent of children w’ere lefthanded, and it was best to leave the : child left-handed and make no sensory disturbance, as, if forced, the child might get stuttering and eye trouble, often in the form of a recurrent squint. Abnormalities were not now regarded with such disfavour as formerly, and, ar they were a form of self-expression, parents did not repress left-handedness so much as formerly, and this might account for the greater number noticed in the infant schools