Ambidextrous Kids are at Higher Risk for ADHD

Speculation abounds about what could cause ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder).  New research is helping to put the pieces together.  A recent study done on 8,000 Finnish kids showed that those who are ambidextrous were at a higher risk for linguistic and attention deficit problems.  The research found that, at age 8, the ambidextrous kids in the group were twice as likely to have academic problems as their peers.  Later, by age 16, they were also “… twice as likely to have symptoms of ADHD.”  Of course not all ADHD kids are ambidextrous and, the reverse, being ambidextrous in itself doesn’t make a person hyperactive.  However, the children who were ambidextrous and did have ADHD had stronger symptoms that those children who were not ambidextrous and showed signs of ADHD. 

Symmetrical Brains:  

The authors of the study (lead author Alina Rodriguez) say that brains without a dominant hemisphere, language being rooted in the left and attention related tasks coming from the right, assign cognitive tasks differently than those of us who have brains with a dominant side.  A separate 2008 study showed that ADHD kids, when given left brain tasks, were getting too much input from their right brains to efficiently solve the task. Their brains did not delegate certain tasks by brain hemisphere, thereby causing a cascade of inefficient processing.  The really interesting part is that ambidextrous people actually have nearly symmetrical brain hemispheres whereas most of us have one half of our brain physically larger than the other (think body builder who works one arm more than the other).  Ambidextrous people have hemispheres that look like mirror images of each other.  The lack of dominance could play a part in ADHD.  Think about being tossed a ball.  Quick!  Which hand do you catch it with?  Trying to catch it with both hands is probably a recipe for a dropped ball.  Likewise, having to think about which hand to extend is equally bad.  What about cognition?  If you’re told to solve a puzzle against a clock and your brain can’t decide which side gets which tasks, you’re likely to fail at the puzzle or at least take much longer to do the puzzle.  Options can be a bitch.  But, symmetrical hemispheres alone do not cause ADHD.  There must be something else at play. 

Rodriguez found, in 2008, that women who suffer emotional trauma such as chronic depression or some other life altering stress during pregnancy are more likely to give birth to children who later become ambidextrous.  That finding lends credence to the notion that environment plays a significant role in the development of the brain.  Researchers have not put all the pieces together to formulate a complete picture of what is ADHD and how it’s caused; a combination of factors seem to be at work.  And, it remains to be seen to what proportion psychology, toxicology and other potential determinants might be culpable.    

Drugs aren’t the Answer: 

I won’t dispute the doctors who say that ADHD is a legitimate disorder.  I wouldn’t have any basis other than intuition for such a statement.  However, this would be a perfect place to interject my opinion that, as a nation, we are entirely over-medicated.  Do you have a back problem?  Don’t do Yoga, take a pill.  How about depression?  Do see a psychiatrist, but also take a pill.  Does your kid act out, and is he sometimes disobedient?  There’s a pill for that, too.  ADHD appears to be a real condition, but the clinical reaction to administer drugs should be a last resort, not a knee jerk, go to.  I believe the vast majority of cases involving ADHD diagnosed children are nothing more than active kids acting like kids.  God knows I’ve had my experience with active kids.  At the same time, I have seen kids who clearly have mental issues.  The causes of those issues aside, they need help.  To those kids, their parents could benefit by a serious opinion.  But, how reliable is that professional opinion if the doctor’s initial impulse is to prescribe a drug to combat a disorder that everybody admits is so ill understood?  Wouldn’t the cautious approach be an incremental evaluation of the patient?  It’s one thing to over medicate an adult.  Kids, with growing bodies and minds, should not be exposed to a mind altering substances at a time in their lives when that mind is so actively expanding.