Thinking Zebras
Pediatric Occupational Therapy
Visual Perceptual skills help us interpret what we see!
Try this exercise:
Is this a bunny or a duck?
How quickly can your brain change between the 2 images?
What are Visual Perceptual Skills?
Visual perception is the ability to mentally manipulate visual information. Visual motor is the ability to act upon that information.
In the video above a child is selecting & orienting the pieces to complete the puzzle.
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Visual Perception is the ability of the brain to interpret the information received through our eyes.
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Once the eyes see something, that information is then sent to processing centers in our brain, which then attribute meaning to what the eyes have just seen.
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Ability to act on that information using coordinated eye hand movement is called visual motor skill.
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Visual perception is considered a cognitive skill. It develops throughout the course of a child's development.
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20/20 vision is a term used to express normal visual acuity; the clarity or sharpness of vision measured at a distance of 20 feet. A child can have difficulty with visual perceptual skills despite scoring a perfect 20/20 on their vision test.​
Why are Visual Perceptual Skills Important?
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Visual perceptual skills work subconsciously and guide our cognition and motor movements to act on an object.
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For any motor task - Visual Perception tells us what we have to and how we have to do it. It enables children to read and write, engage in sports and successfully carry out daily tasks and more. It's the skill a child uses every morning to find a pair of socks from a busy drawer of socks; to put shoes in the right foot; to locate the worksheet in a folder full of papers; to organize their bags; to differentiate between letters b & d and numbers 2 & 3; to find that puzzle piece that will fit correctly; to position the body to hit the soccer ball that is racing fast at them. And the list goes on!
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Visual perceptual processing is subdivided into seven components. All these components work together and help the child make an informed decision about how to do any task. Here are some more examples of how children use some of these components both at school and at home.
How To Identify If Your Child Needs Support In Visual Perceptual Skills
​Listed below are some of the commonly seen visual perceptual challenges in children.
If You Suspect Delays in Visual Perceptual Skills
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If you notice difficulty in any of the areas listed above, speak to your child’s classroom teacher to see if they are observing some of the similar challenges in the classroom.
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If the answer is yes, then consult an optometrist or an ophthalmologist, who will assess your child’s vision. They will assess mechanics and efficiency of eye functions to rule out potential vision related issues.​
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If your child doesn't have any structural & mechanical eye issues or they have been resolved with corrective lenses or glasses but your child still continues to struggle in one of the areas mentioned above. Then you may need to speak to your child’s school’s OT and/or school psychologist. The role of a psychologist is to look at other related issues such as learning differences or difficulty focusing. Procedure of referral, screening and evaluation varies in every work place, so speak to your child’s teacher.
How Can an OT Help?
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The role of the OT in this area is to address and treat visual perceptual and visual motor skills. The first step will be for an OT to do an evaluation.
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The OT evaluation will take a holistic look at the child’s abilities. It will look at attributes such as posture, bilateral coordination, fine motor and vision motor skill.
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The evaluation may look deeper into components of visual processing skills , which include visual discrimination, visual figure ground, visual closure, visual memory, visual sequential memory, visual form constancy, and visual spatial relationships.
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OT will look at child's work samples, speak to the classroom teacher, and interview the parents. Based on all this information, OT will then create short term and long term goals.
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In OT sessions, the therapist will use fun and creative exercises and activities with materials, puzzles, games, and worksheets.
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The OT may also coordinate with the classroom teacher to implement individualized strategies to make it easier for your student in the classroom. For instance they may be able to provide different kinds of writing paper , help with seating positioning for most efficient viewing, suggest bigger print size on the worksheet, provide checklist & mnemonics to prevent reversals etc.
Ideas For Home Activities
Worksheets
Color the
Engine's Shapes
Arrow
Activity
Copy the Patterns
Activity
Interactive
Matching Parts To the Whole Activity
Activity Targets: to promote mental manipulation of shapes.
Items Needed: Puzzle game matching parts to whole .
How To Do: To teach the activity, discuss the types of shapes, number of shapes, and there orientation. Demonstrate it for your child. Verbalize as you match the parts to the whole and then encourage your child to try.
Activity Targets: to teach building and orienting shapes.
Items Needed: colored popsicle sticks, a marker and a paper
How To Do: Draw the shape on the paper ( try to keep the sides of the shape as the same length as the popsicle stick). To teach the activity - ask the child to place the popsicle stick on the outline of the shape. Count the sides to help them recall the shape. To challenge, remove the visual and ask them to make the shape with the popsicle stick.
Building Shapes With Popsicle Sticks Activity
Create Patterns With Shapes Activity
Activity Targets: to teach visual spatial orientation of shapes.
Items Needed: Tangram puzzle with multiple pieces.
How To Do: To teach the activity, discuss how the different shapes look and how they are oriented. Review the names of the shapes. Set rules for turn taking. Take turns and play
Katamino Activity
Activity Targets: Spatial orientation of shapes to fit a certain number of puzzle pieces in a given space.
Items Needed: Katamino
How To Do: Good puzzle game for kids 6+. The game comes with many levels. Take turns and share your thinking aloud, so your child can use some of the strategies before doing it independently. At every level - the goal of the game is to fit a given number of pieces in the alloted space.
