It is now about 20 years since I have been studying the thumbs of children for their size, shape, length, creases outside and inside, range of movement, flexibility, position, etc.
It all started by an observation in children who were born with weakness of one side or developed weakness after birth, that they had a smaller thumb on the weaker side. This smallness came from disuse of the weaker thumb.
That did raise a question in my mind as to whether differential use of the thumbs also would lead to the thumb size being different from the other!
A child who is right handed would use the right much more than the left! Would that make the right thumb larger than the left! This curiosity made me observe thumbs of hundreds of children whom I welcomed for consultation. Yes, the thumb on the dominant hand is marginally bigger.
This raised a question in my mind: would inspecting the size of the thumbs help in differentiating children who were born to be destined to use the left hand as the preferred hand!
My observation has driven me to conclude that there are some children who have larger left thumb, but use the right hand. On enquiry with parents, I found majority of them were forced to change to use the right hand from the time they noticed the child using the left hand. So although we ought to find at least 10-15 percent of children using the left hand by preference, in actual practice, it is less than 5 percent!
What happens to all those who were forced to change to use the right hand! It is likely that there is a greater challenges when they write or perform activities of daily living! Some children have even reading or learning related difficulties on account of this.
Left handedness is NORMAL!
One hand is the dominant one and the other is a companion hand. Whether it is the right or the left hand which is dominant, it is the one brain which is responsible for both.
M.C.Mathew(text and photo)
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