Why do children who are learning to write confuse the letters "b" and "d" — and occasionally write their names back-to-front?
According to Stanislas Dehaene, the director of INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit in France, it's because the area of the brain that we use for reading originally evolved for recognising objects and their mirror images.
Speaking at the 7th Forum of European Neuroscience in Amsterdam earlier this month, Dehaene said: "It's no wonder that children have so many difficulties with mirror reading and writing. They are trying to learn to read with precisely the area of the brain that has the most sensitivity to recognising mirror images."
You can read more here on the New Scientist web site.