Visual Perceptual Skills
This month I’ve been diving into the in’s and outs of visual perceptual skills.
Visual Perceptual skills allow a child to perceive and make sense of their environment through sight. These skills impact reading and writing, navigating through and finding objects in the environment, problem solving, and more. There are 7 different visual perceptual skills.
Visual Memory is the storage and recall of learned images, form, and characters. This means that after learning their shapes, a child knows that a circle is a circle. They are then able to differentiate a circle from a square. This hold true for letters, numbers, shapes, and figures.
Visual Discrimination is recognizing differences and similarities in objects or forms. In holding with the shapes example, visual discrimination is referring to knowing that a square has 4 equal sides while a rectangle has two. It is also relevant for being able to find differences between two images.
Figure Ground is finding of an object or form in a hidden or cluttered environment. I Spy and Where’s Waldo are prime examples of this. But it’s also relevant in everyday life. A child needs to be able to find a blue crayon in a pencil box or locate their favorite t-shirt in a drawer. This is also figure ground skill!
Visual Spatial Relations is the processing of the location of objects in relation to others and oneself. This is important skill for drawing, copying designs, and making graphs and geometric figures. For example, drawing a house with the chimney proportional to the walls, and the windows smaller than the door. Knowing the difference between right and left will greatly help this skill develop.
Visual Sequential Memory is remembering and recalling a sequence of objects, forms, or characters. Before they were all stored in a phone, we had to memorize phone numbers. Each 10-number sequence is unique and needs to be remembered accurately get in touch with who you need to. This is important for reading, writing, and copying from a board in school! Having a functioning visual sequential memory allows a child to keep up with copying notes in class.
Form Constancy is recognizing a form regardless of size, orientation, or position. For example, knowing an A is an A no matter how large or small, tilted to the side or upside down.
Visual Closure is the ability to recognize a figure with missing details or when incomplete. For example, completing a half drawing of a picture or a dot-to-dot worksheet.
Visual perceptual skills are crucial for writing legibility, drawing skills, and math. Occupational therapists can address these skills in children of all ages in outpatient and school environments.
Visual Perceptual activities can include one or multiple skills in together! Here are a few games that incorporate visual perceptual skills:
Spot It!
I Spy
Simon
Uno
Where’s Waldo?
Rush Hour
Puzzles
Tangrams
Twister
For Occupational Therapy practitioner templates and activities to address Visual Perceptual skills, check out my Visual Perception bundle!
Emily is a pediatric occupational therapist providing community and home-based OT services in the Greater Philadelphia area, PA. She is a mentor for School-Based Occupational Therapists, offering one-one-one sessions to grow in confidence and skills. Emily Marie OT LLC strives to empower all to achieve their full potential.