Dr Madeleine Portwood, a senior educational psychologist at Durham County Council, said that up to 30 per cent of the hundreds of children she had observed started school without knowing whether they were left- or right- handed, up from 10 per cent a decade ago.
She said, 'It is important, if you start formal education at four-and-a-half and you are expected to hold an implement to write, that you know which hand to hold it in.'
Children often seemed unsure about what hand to use when holding a pen and so they gave up trying, she said, and teachers tended to place a pen in a child's right hand, creating confusion for left-handed children.
She suggested that problems were caused by parents placing children on their backs at night because of fears of cot death, which meant that infants were reluctant to lie on their fronts and therefore less likely to crawl and develop left-right co-ordination.
She encouraged parents to place young children on their fronts when they are awake and lie with them on the floor.
Dr Portwood's previous research found that 57 per cent of a group of 400 three-year-olds had delayed development in their movement skills and difficulty walking in a straight line and balancing on one foot (News, 9 January).
