Wrist straight or Wrist hooked when writing?

[kissing]

Some of you may be familiar with "Hemispheric Specialisation" - which is the concept that one side of your brain is more dominant over the other at certain tasks (ie: are you a left-brain thinker or a right-brain thinker?)

 

But i read this interesting article about how it relates to how you hold your pen:

 

Individuals with a dominant left hemisphere for language are typically:

 

-right-handed and write with a straight wrist or

-left handed with their wrist in a hooked position.

 

 

 

Conversely, individuals with a dominant right hemisphere are typically:

 

-left handed and write with their wrists below the line of the page they are writing on or

-right handed and write with their wrist in a hooked position

 

What concerned me about this phenomenon is that if you read guidelines on fountain pens, the "correct" way to hold a fountain pen is with a STRAIGHT wrist. What does that mean for people who hold their pens with a hooked wrist? I write with my right hand but with my wrist hooked instead of straight.

 

http://www1.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/615225/2/istockphoto_615225_hand_hold_fountain_pen_isolated_on_white_bakground.jpg

 

recommended way to hold a fountain pen - ie: straight wrist

Edited June 12, 2006 by kissing

[Slush99]

Right hand, straight wrist.

[rosey]

I'm a right handed straight wrist writer. But I didn't know until I went and checked! :blink:

How do you write with a hooked wrist? Can you post a picture?

[Polyhistor]

I'm a right handed straight wrist writer. But I didn't know until I went and checked! :blink:

How do you write with a hooked wrist? Can you post a picture?

Right hand, straight wrist.

 

But I too couldn´t have told which way I´m usually holding the pen without trying first.

Then I tried to write with my wrist hooked...no way I could produce anything legible.

 

Regards, A.

[aunt rebecca]

hi,

 

i am left-handed and write with a straight wrist. there is no one correct way to hold fountain pen--depends on the user and a load of variables. thank goodness we can't all be put into neat little cubbies!!! YAY FOR DIVERSITY.

 

:roflmho: :roflmho:

 

:ltcapd: :ltcapd:

 

:meow: :bunny1: :meow: :bunny1:

[Dawn]

I too am left handed and write with a straight wrist, but in order to do so I have to have the paper at a fairly dramatic angle

[Goodwhiskers]

I've heard of a shop in San Diego that sells products designed for left-handed people, and they even teach left-handers how to write like Dawn does, almost vertically (as if writing with the old Mongolian/Manchu script!), to prevent smearing.

[kissing]

well...here are some photos of what i think is "straight wrist" and "hooked wrist"

 

 

straight wrist

 

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/pactio_kiss/P0613_174901.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

hooked wrist

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/pactio_kiss/P0613_175146.jpg

(this is how i hold my pen usually)

[rosey]

Interesting. I write with a straight wrist. I was taught to write this way in elementary school.

[Polyhistor]

well...here are some photos of what i think is "straight wrist" and "hooked wrist"

That´s interesting, I thought "hooked" referred to whether your wrist is bent or not when writing, so this would be hooked (not a very good picture, but I couldn´t find a better one):

 

http://wellsaidnw.f2o.org/upload/lefty.jpg

 

Regards, A.

[Guest Denis Richard]

well...here are some photos of what i think is "straight wrist" and "hooked wrist"

 

 

straight wrist

 

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/pactio_kiss/P0613_174901.jpg

 

 

 

 

 

 

hooked wrist

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y121/pactio_kiss/P0613_175146.jpg

(this is how i hold my pen usually)

Your wrist looks straight in both pictures. A hooked wrist usually means a 90 degrees (or close to...) between hand and arm. My nieces and nephews write with such an awful bend and are all right-handed. I think it really is a matter of education. They were simply taught to write that way.

 

 

Here is a hooked wrist :

http://briem.ismennt.is/4/4.1.3b/4.1.3.4.hook.gif

Edited June 13, 2006 by Denis Richard

[Grimoire]

I did a bit of research on this fascinating topic...

 

Language usually lateralizes to the left hemisphere in most people, right- or left-handed. However, lefties are more likely than right handed people to have language in the right hemisphere:

 

Strongly right handed: 4% have right hemisphere language

Ambidextrous: 15% right hemisphere language

Strongly left handed: 27% right hemisphere language

 

Handedness and hemispheric language dominance in healthy humans

 

Levy and Reid (1976, 1978) claimed that writing posture ("hooked" or straight) predicts cerebral language dominance. In 1984, Strauss, Wada, and Kosaka demonstrated that inverted writers have the same pattern of cerebral language dominance as straight writers. (Incidentally, Juhn Wada is a neurologist who came up with a reliable test for determining cerebral dominance (appropriately named the Wada test). It consists of injecting sodium amobarbital into the right or left carotid artery, thus putting one of the hemispheres "to sleep" and then testing whether the awake hemisphere could understand language. It is primarily used for epilepsy surgery planning.)

 

Writing hand posture and cerebral dominance for speech

 

Volpe, Sidtis, and Gazzaniga replicated Wada's results. (Michael Gazzaniga, interestingly, got famous studying "split brain" patients, i.e., patients who had had their corpus callosum split, completely separating their left and right cerebral hemispheres. This was an older operation for severe, intractible epilepsy. It caused unusual behavioral syndromes, as each hemisphere literally had a mind of its own. Later it was discovered that you didn't need to completely separate the hemispheres to control severe epilepsy, and this avoided the "split brain" syndromes.)

 

Nevertheless, the reasons for development of inverted ("hooked") writing posture continue to fascinate neuropsychologists.

 

Evidently, left-handed boys are more prone to developing it than leftie girls. The straight-writing left-handed boys seem to do more poorly in reading.

 

The development of writing posture in left-handed children

 

In one study, left-handers who wrote with an inverted ("hooked") writing posture performed slightly better on cognitive tests than non-inverted lefties.

 

Cognitive abilities in left-handers

 

However, other studies have not replicated this finding of cognitive differences between hooked and straight lefties.

 

A more reasonable explanation is that cursive writing necessitates the inverted writing style in lefties:

 

Incidence of left-handed writers and the inverted writing style in German schoolchildren

[kissing]

That's what i had to know for my Psychology exam.

[Grimoire]

Yes, well, a bit long-winded, but I thought it was interesting.

 

The take-home message is that Wada and Gazzaniga's groups (and others) pretty well demonstrated that writing style (hooked versus straight) has NOTHING to do with cerebral language dominance. A pity, though, as it's an elegant idea...but wrong, alas...

[kissing]

Yes, well, a bit long-winded, but I thought it was interesting.

 

The take-home message is that Wada and Gazzaniga's groups (and others) pretty well demonstrated that writing style (hooked versus straight) has NOTHING to do with cerebral language dominance. A pity, though, as it's an elegant idea...but wrong, alas...

dang!! really?

 

Then obviously the textbook i got my info off was wrong ?

 

its a 2006 "Psychology Exam Revision" textbook and that's where i got the info from.

 

The authors better check their facts before publishing *tsk tsk* <_<

[maia]

Right handed, straight wrist. Yay

[*david*]

Kissing - your wrist is definitely straight when you write, unless you write in a way that your picture doesn't show. You do have a unique hand position in that picture, but your wrist is 100% straight.

[kissing]

Kissing - your wrist is definitely straight when you write, unless you write in a way that your picture doesn't show. You do have a unique hand position in that picture, but your wrist is 100% straight.

I think you're right. I have a weird grip on my pen, and I must have had it confused of the true definition of "hooked wrist". I dont know why i grip my pen like that..It just felt more comfortable for me to do so. It feels awkward for me to grip it in the more popular way (first picture) . . .

 

The funny thing about my grip is, my handwriting seems to change in style with the tiniest variations in angle

 

If you see some of my long essays, etc: The first few pages, the middle pages and the last pages all look as though they were written by a different person

 

Maybe i should become a spy or something :ph34r:

[*david*]

Maybe i should become a spy or something :ph34r:

How do we know you're not?

[Guest Denis Richard]

It does not seem very practical to try to determine fundamental neurological patterns from an act as learned as writing.

 

For example, in 26 years in Europe, I have never seen a right-handed person write with a hooked wrist, only left-handed. By comparison, most kids and many adults I have seen in California have that hooked position, whether right of left handed.

 

Unless we can find a group of kids that learned to write on their own (raised by the wolves ?) I don't see what could be learned from writing position.

Edited June 14, 2006 by Denis Richard