So today I had my sister over with both my Niece and Nephew (4 & 3 y/o respectively). To entertain them, I made them paper airplanes that I had them throw at my Mini RC-helicopter as I flew it outside. Pretty standard fun stuff.
What niece did was remind me of this strange trait that she has. She started coloring her paper airplane with crayons and spelled her name on both sides of it. Which reminded me that her handwriting has a tendency to be mirrored. It may of looked like scribbled lines at a glance, but in the mirror it spells out her name perfectly. Which she has always done, but I was reminded of it today.
Have you ever encountered anyone (young or old) that does this?
I actually taught myself to do that sometime in high school. Used to be able to write completely mirrored, with fairly decent speed. Maybe 15%-20% extra time per page of writing? Pretty close to that anyhow.
Now, why did I do it? English teacher told me to write a story, but be creative this time (notorious for being uncreative with topics I dislike, which was 90% of all high school essay topics. Go figure.). Being a smart ass, I wrote a fairly standard story mirrored. Turned it in, got a "wtf is this?" look, and pointed at her mirror. Got a B, I was happy, friends saw it, thought it was funny/cool, kept doing it every so often for shits and giggles.
And I imagine this story could be offensive to some, so I'm apologizing in advance. This is just my personal story of mirrored writing, and I have no intent of mocking your nieces tendencies, as I'm sure they can be quite the problem. Again, no offense meant, and I hope she can work her way out of these problems.
Yea I knew a guy from high school who could do that. He's also expert with Diablo Sticks and can solve a Rubik's cube with 1 hand in 43 seconds. Keep an eye on that niece of yours, it takes a special brain to do that stuff at a high level (legible at age 4 is definitely a high level of proficiency).
I had a left-handed friend who wrote all of her class notes and any other personal things mirrored, because it was easier to not smear them.
I also found that my younger sister went through a phase when she was learning how to write where half the time she'd write completely mirrored and the other half she'd write normally. I wonder if there's some developmental phase where kids don't really know the difference...