Visual Perceptual Skills

At WriteSteps Occupational Therapy, we look at the whole child. Often times a child that has difficulty with handwriting and drawing tasks may not only have difficulty with their motor skills, but may have difficulty with their visual perceptual skills. For example, this can affect them when they are asked to copy a sentence from a board or the ability to write letters with proper alignment. There are several different areas of visual perception that can affect a child’s overall ability for optimal functioning in their environment.

Position in space– The ability to match two figures according to their common features. This can affect a child’s ability to see which letters are the same or different

Figure-ground– The ability to see specified figures even when they are hidden or in confusing, complex backgrounds. Some children that have difficulty with this area may have difficulty with hidden pictures such as “Find 10 frogs in the forest picture”

Visual closure– The ability to recognize something when it has been incompletely drawn or when only part of it can be seen. For example,  child may have difficulty with mazes and puzzles

Form constancy– Measures the ability to match two figures that vary on one or more discriminating features. (ie. size, position of shade)                    For example, knowing that a triangle will still be a triangle if it is turned on its side or smaller than the previous one

 

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