Right-Brain, Left-Brain is a Myth

Some sources will say that personality and learning style differ according to what side of your brain is dominant– well that is a myth.

This myth of people being inclined in either right brained or left brained activities originated from the Nobel Prize-winning research of Roger Sperry in the 1960s. Sperry cut the brain along a structure called the corpus callosum in patients who have epilepsy and found out that the left and right sides of the brain could no longer communicate once that structure was cut.

He then did some studies and determined which sides of the brain were involved in different parts of thought. Psychology enthusiasts ran with this idea and convoluted it to mean more than it was meant to.

The neuroscience community never believed it, and now we have evidence from more than 1,000 brain scans showing absolutely no signs of left or right dominance.

In an interview with braindecoder.com, Neil Degrasse Tyson who is a popular scientist completely shuns the theory. He thinks it was thrown into mainstream media as another attempt to categorize people rather than recognizing them as individuals.

According to brainhq.com, brain scan technology has confirmed that the two sides complement each other. Scholars used to think that language processing only occurred in the left hemisphere, but now know that it occurs in both hemispheres.

The only part of the original assumption is that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body and the left side controls the right side of the body.

So, when you are looking for credible sources shedding light on your child’s struggles, stay away from sources that rely on left-brain, right brain reasoning.

If you have questions about your child’s struggles or want to take our free dyslexia screener, visit our website.