This is the ability of the brain to interpret and
process what the eyes see.
This is the building blocks that a child needs for
reading, writing and maths.
Visual perception and vision may influence each other
but kids with poor vision don’t necessarily have poor visual perception and
vice versa.
Visual perceptual skills are divided into 7 sub
sections:
- Discrimination
- Memory
- Foreground-background
- Form constancy
- Sequential memory
- Spatial relations and position in space
- Analysis and synthesis
What does it mean when my child has impaired visual perceptual skills?
When a child struggles with visual perceptual skills
this means that the brain struggles to perceive and process what the eyes see.
Signs when a child has visual perceptual difficulties
Discrimination:
The ability to recognize the differences and similarities
between objects/number/letters/pictures- Struggles to find words/numbers that is the same
- Struggles to find a specific word/number in a paragraph
- Struggle to find the differences between 2 pictures
- Confuses word e.g. saw/was, one/on
Memory:
- Struggles to copy work from the black board
- Struggles to remember detail
- Struggles to learn how to read
- Struggles with reading comprehension
Foreground-background:
The ability to recognize important/relevant
letters/numbers/objects/pictures and disregard irrelevant/unimportant
information – thus locating a single object/word/number within a complex
background
- Will ‘steals’ words/letters from other sentences/words and add it to the word/sentence while they are busy reading.
- Find it difficult to find specific words/numbers on a page
- Struggles to find a toy in a toy-box
- Struggles to find a specific shirt in his drawer
Form constancy:
- Struggles to read different types of fonts/hand writing
- Struggle to copy writing from the black board
- Confuses letters with each another when different fonts of writing are used e.g. a/d; u/a; c/e.
Sequential memory:
The ability to remember a series of objects/numbers/letters/pictures
– very important for spelling
- Struggles to copy words/sentences/numbers from the blackboard or from a text book
- Struggles with spelling
- Omit, add or transpose letters in words
Spatial relations and position in space
The ability to recognize the position of an
object/letter/number in relations to itself/the environment/another
letter/object/number.
This skills also has a big influence on how a child
manipulates himself in his environment e.g. go stand in front of the fountain.- Confuse e.g. p/b/d
- Reverses words in a sentence
- Starts writing the middle of the page – not against the boarder
- Reverses syllables e.g. will read no/on
Analysis and synthesis (closure):
This is the ability to take parts of objects/numbers/letters/pictures
and make a whole object/number/word/sentence/picture or knowing what an object
is by when only seeing parts of it e.g. building puzzles; c-a-t makes the word
cat.finds it difficult to read words that they have to spell
- confuses words/objects that are similar
Activities that can improve visual perceptual skills
- Show the child a sequence of objects and let him copy it (3 dimensional and 2 dimensional)
- Build puzzles
- Show the child a shape/object and let him find others that are the
- same – bigger/smaller/other colours are required
- Find the differences between 2 pictures
- Match objects/pictures
- Find an object amongst others e.g. ‘Where’s Wally’
- ‘I spy with my little eye’ game
- Show the child a sequence of objects for 5 seconds then the child has to copy it
- (if a child is 4 years old he should be able to copy 4 item – process until 7 items)
- Sort objects according to shape/colour
- Dot-to-dot games
If
you suspect that your child is struggling with his visual perceptual skills,
please make an appointment with an occupational therapist for an assessment.
References
Written by: Carla Grobler
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