Cory,
Not that I believe in it, I'm now actually leaning toward the possibility that lefts are gifted, but it's strange to me how left handedness got associated with all these types of deficiencies.
If the first theory is correct about higher levels of testosterone at birth, and a more developed right hemisphere, and a less developed left hemisphere, this could result in an autistic outcome, and many of these other deficiencies as well.
Ironically, perhaps the fact that left-handed brains are deficient in a developmental context gives them a significant higher possibility in developing above average strengths.
Moreover, left handed people are usually able to learn other languages much easier because their right hemispheres have significantly higher amounts of neurons, as this hemisphere is responsible for language acquisition. However, their weakness with spatial relationships is due to their poorly developed left hemispheres, which has much less numbers of neurons, which is all due to the over amount of testosterone at birth.
Historically, it is understandable that many cultures treated left handed people like inferiors, and even killed them because of their inability to socialize and adapt properly.
"Contrary to popular scientific belief, left-handedness is not linked to dyslexia, poorer spatial ability, homosexuality, asthma and hyperactivity, a University of Guelph psychology professor has found."
"Over the years science has claimed that the left-handed are prone to all manner of ills. Alcoholism, autism, bed-wetting and brain damage, immune disorders, even a shorter live span are just some of the problems linked to left-handedness.
Very interesting because….
As a child, I had asthma and was constantly sick. I suspect that my immune system is more sensitive to the environment; my mother was always afraid that I was going to die prematurely.
In grade one, I almost failed because dyslexia prevented me from reading properly, my teachers discovered that I simply memorized words that I heard because I couldn’t recognize symbols as distinct things, and their relationship to sound. To this day, I still have a difficulty pronouncing some words I haven’t heard spoken before.
Also, I don’t trust my driving skills because I don’t trust my ability to observe close-up spatial relationships in risky situations, I have almost ran over pedestrians many times. I have to memorize the locations of all the crosswalks in the city, and have absolutely no distractions while driving just to be able to spot pedestrians. It requires a lot of concentration for me.
If I am looking for something in the fridge, I can spend minutes scanning for the desired object, and sometimes I stare directly at it, but I don't see it. And someone usually walks by and points out the object for me.
I don’t have any homosexual tendencies, but I do have an overactive heterosexual sex drive, probably due to unusually high levels of testosterone.
I was hyperactive as a young child, but as I grew, I slowly became more obsessively attentive, anal retentive, and a bit of a compulsive perfectionist. This resulted in high grades later on in school.