Monday, December 15, 2014

Violet's Favorite Homework

After each of her occupational therapy session, Violet gets a "homework" to focus on for the week until the next session. This week's homework: finding out whether Violet is left-handed, right-handed, or truly ambidextrous. Right now, her therapist would almost tend to her being ambidextrous, as initially, she performed her tests better with her right hand, which made us believe that she was a "confused righty" (right-handed people who prefer using their left hand due to mostly left-handed role models; usually the other way round!). Today, she approached me with a worksheet, informing me that surprisingly, she had performed a lot better with her LEFT hand that day, and that we really need to observe her in her daily life to establish her "handedness" for good.

So Violet's "homework" for this week is, among others (daily tasks like eating with utensils, brushing her teeth, etc.):

- eating ice cream in cones (in which hand does she hold the cone).
- water the flowers.
- hammer nails into a board (most likely hubby's favorite).
- color with water colors.

Guess who was very excited to be allowed to pick a maxi-box of ice cream cones at the grocery store today??

What would happen if Violet was determined to be truely ambidextrous?  We, together with her kindergarten teachers and therapists, will have to decide for her whether she will be raised mostly left- or right-handed. By the time she starts school, she has to be established as being left- or right-handed, and depending on how we decide, her occupational therapist will focus on training her dominant hand.

Our Violet is truly a very special girl!

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