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Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!harpo!utah-cs!beesvax!dennis
From: dennis@beesvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.kids
Subject: Re: handedness
Message-ID: <241@beesvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 10-Nov-83 13:42:31 EST
Article-I.D.: beesvax.241
Posted: Thu Nov 10 13:42:31 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Nov-83 04:47:21 EST
Organization: Beehive International, SLC, UT
Lines: 22

Having come from familys of right-handers, my wife and I began
to notice that our son was developing a preferance for a south-
paw. This didn't concern us, but we were (and still are) curious
as to how this happened. After he turned 2 years old, our second
son was born. My wife read an article in a parenting magazine on
hand preferances that suggested a childs hand preferance could be
learned and went further to say that this learning process could
ocurr during a bottle feeding session. We bottle fed our oldest
during his infancy and we came to realize (from bottle feeding the
second child) that every time we fed him we tucked his right arm
against our body which left his left arm free to grasp the bottle
or fling it around and do whatever. So we decided to alternate the
feeding position and let each arm be free at different feeding times.
I don't know if our results are conclusive or not but the oldest boy
is now 6 and a very definite left-hander. The second boy is 4 and a
third boy (3 years) are definite right-handers. I'm not saying that
this is the reason for the oldest boy's hand preferance, but this 
is our experience and it *may* have been a contributing factor.

Dennis McCurdy
Beehive International
(..harpo!utah-cs!beesvax)