THE PHENOMENON OF MIRROR WRITING

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Mirror-writing or reverse writing is the production of letters, words or sentences in reverse direction so that they look normal when viewed in a mirror. This writing is seen amongst healthy individuals; it is also associated with various focal lesions that most commonly involve the left hemisphere of the brain, as well as with certain diffuse cerebral disorders.

Some people may mirror-write intentionally, but unintentional mirror-writing is surprisingly common amongst young kids and in brain-damaged adults. Unintentional mirror-writing indicates a tension between a tendency for our brains to treat mirror-images as equivalent. This article delves the various manifestations of mirror-writing, and the concepts put forward to account for it.

The occurrence of mirror writing in healthy people

Children

1. when learning to write

Adults

1.  writing for curiosity, for fun or experimentation
2.   during transiently altered cerebral function—e.g., hypnosis or anaesthesia
3.   after peripheral damage to the preferred right hand
4.   habitually, probably only by Leonardo da Vinci
5.   learnt for occupational purposes by telegraphers, etchers, lithographers, etc
6.   undertaken in classical times
7.   in reversed writing before transfer to paper
8.   inscriptions on monuments and artefacts
9.   as a component of boustrophedon script*

(*Script written in boustrophedon (Greek “as the ox turns”) comprises alternate lines written rightwards and leftwards, mirrored.)

Mirror-writing is very common amongst children who are learning to write. These productions are not mere confusions of legal mirror-image characters (such as ‘b’ and ‘d’) but can also involve the reversal of any character, even whole words and phrases. A child may sign her name correctly but back-to-front. Interestingly, some letters are more likely to be reversed than others, particularly those such as ‘3’ or ‘J’ in which the correct form ‘faces’ leftwards. This suggests that while exposing the child to written language, he/she implicitly extracts the statistical regularity that most characters ‘face’ to the right, then over-applies this ‘right-writing rule’.

Normal children often go through a stage of mirroring of at least a few letters, especially reversible letters such as b and d, during the scribbling period and early stages of writing, mainly between the ages of 3 to 7 years.

Mirror writing can also be produced for fun like, when writing with both hands simultaneously, or when writing on one’s own forehead or the under‐surface of a board.

Mirror writing in pathological conditions

The range of pathological conditions associated with mirror writing in children and adults shows that neither a specific location nor a particular cause underlies the phenomenon.

The occurrence of pathological mirror writing

1. In children with “mental retardation”, learning difficulties or dyslexia
2. In focal brain disease usually involving the left hemisphere (e.g., stroke, focal trauma or abscess)
3. extremely rarely in lesions of the right hemisphere
4. In diffuse brain disease
5. head injury
6.  degenerative brain disease (essential tremor, Parkinson’s disease and spinocerebellar degeneration)
7.  rarely in adults with learning disabilities
8.  elderly people and people with dementia.

The Solution:

The brain doesn’t completely form the concept of left and right until somewhere between ages 5 and 8 years. This means almost all children will have persistent reversals when they first start writing.

Don’t stop your child from writing this way, and don’t make them correct it. If they ask whether it’s correct or not, you can point out the errors, but don’t make a big deal of it. You don’t want to limit your child’s creativity by constantly pointing out what’s wrong.

The more the children write, the easier it becomes for them. When they learnt to walk, you wouldn’t have dreamed of telling them to stop because they couldn’t do it properly, or of trying to correct them and give them lessons.

Similarly, with writing, children should be free to practice and make mistakes. By 1^st grade, teachers will start asking children to correct their reversals, and by the end of 2^nd grade, almost all children have stopped doing it completely.

The majority of kids outgrow reversing as they get stronger at reading and writing. Reversing letters is typical and fairly common up until 2^nd grade.

That’s because the letters b, d, p, and q are really all the same letter. They’re just flipped and turned. As adults and experienced readers, we have learnt that their position makes a big difference.

Young kids and early readers may not always make that distinction right away. That discovery is part of the learning process. It comes as children build their phonics skills and become more experienced readers and writers.

If your child is still reversing letters a lot by the end of 2^nd grade, then you may want to reach out to your child’s teacher. Get the teacher’s take on what’s going on, and talk about next steps.

Mirror-writing has also been portrayed in films:

1. Christopher Nolan’s Memento, the ‘facts’ are tattooed on Leonard’s chest in mirror-writing so that he can read their reflection;
2. Stanley Kubrik’s The Shining, Danny writes REDRUM on the door, which is MURDER backwards. (Maggie does the same with her toy blocks in the Simpsons episode Reality Bites).
3. Mirror-writing also features in the Simpsons episode ‘Brother from the same planet’;
4. the Scooby-Doo episode ‘Mystery mask mix-up’;
5. The 25th Hour; Alvin and the Chipmunks; and Flowers for Algernon.