III. MIRROR WRITING
A certain number of children, variously estimated, write backwards, beginning at the right of the page. This is called “mirror writing,” and is apparently a function of left-handedness. Baldwin’s description is succinct.
“Mirror writing is the form of inscription which arises from tracing words with the left hand by an exact reduplication of the movements of the right hand, in a symmetrical way from the central point in front of the body, out toward the left. It produces a form of reversed writing which cannot be read until it is seen in a mirror. Many left-handed children tend to write in this way. Some adults, on taking a pen to write with the left hand, find they can write only in this way. Even those, like myself, to whom the movements seem, when thought of in visual terms, quite confusing and impossible, yet find when they try to write with both hands together, in the air, from a central point right and left, that the left hand mirror writing movements are very natural and easy.”
Beeley conducted a survey, by questionnaire addressed to teachers, of the prevalence of mirror writers in the elementary schools of Chicago. He thus found one mirror writer to every 2500 children. Gordon by actual tests of writing found a larger proportion of mirror writers, about one-half of one per cent. Among feeble-minded children in special schools the percentage appears to be much greater, in fact, about seventeen times as great, according to Gordon’s findings.
All investigators agree that mirror writers are almost always left-handed by test, though the writing may be done with the left hand, or with the right. As to the hand used in producing the writing there is disagreement among investigators. Gordon found that “the mirror writers were nearly always left-handed children who wrote with the right hand.” Beeley says: “All of the mirror writers write mirror-wise with the left hand. The only instances of right-hand mirror writing found were a few upper-grade pupils who having seen this kind of writing naturally executed by mirror writers, attempted to imitate the same.”
The origin of mirror writing is not fully explained as yet. It is probably the natural mode for left-handed persons, as attempts to write with both hands indicate. Yet not all left-handed persons acquire this habit. Obviously the mirror writer is not corrected in his fault by notice of the discrepancies between the visual and the motor. It may be that those left-handed children who become mirror writers are usually deficient in visual perception of letters or words, or generally deficient. That there are, however, bright children who form this habit is shown by the surveys made.
Samples of mirror writing by school children are shown in Figure 27. In order to correct the difficulty, visual control of movement must be cultivated. Attempts to correct by changing over to the right hand are injudicious, for the reasons cited under the discussion of left-handedness.
Fig. 27.—Showing mirror writing by public school pupils. (From Beeley’s An Experimental Study of Left-Handedness. Reproduced by courtesy of the University of Chicago Press.)
In securing the control of visual perception and imagery, it is well to have the child write slowly and carefully from a copy, not being allowed for some time to write spontaneously. At first, particularly, the teacher may guide the child’s hands and urge him to notice in detail how another writes. Of course, the best educational treatment is that which never permits the development of the habit in the first place. This could be accomplished by careful watching of all left-handed children, at the very beginning of their attempts to learn to write. As each letter and figure is taught for the first time, the child whose natural impulse is to reverse it could be made conscious of his error, and could be drilled in the coördinations of hand and eye which produce the correct response. In the very large beginners’ classes which are customary in the public schools, such careful attention to the needs of individuals is here, as in other respects, difficult to give.