Visual Perception

What Is Visual Perception?

Visual perception refers to the brain's ability to make sense of what the eyes see. This is not the same as visual acuity which refers to how clearly a person sees. A person can have 20/20 vision and still have problems with visual perceptual processing.

Visual perception can be broken down into many categories. The first is Visual Discrimination. If a student can match items and tell when they are different, then learning letters and numbers, then making self-corrections becomes easier.

Visual Spatial Relations also assists with letter/number formations and writing skills. When a student can understand prepositions of on, under, in, above, between, left, right, center etc. then they are able to understand the spatial relations directions that they are given when performing an academic task such as writing. When completing worksheets they would then understand where to put their name when the teacher states "top left corner". Spatial relations skills also assist with graphing, mapping and organization.

Left-Right Discrimination skills falls under this developmental area. When a student switches hands and does not develop a dominant hand to write with then reversals may occur.

Visual Figure Ground-ability to ignore extraneous visual stimuli to attend to relevant detail. Think Where's Waldo? This visual perceptual skill allows student's to look down to their paper and back to the board or book to locate a word or section while copying. The ability to filter out unnecessary visual stimuli also increases visual attention to task.

Visual Memory- When student's can have an accurate picture in their mind of what a letter looks like when formed correctly and what words look like when spelled correctly, then handwriting letter formations and spelling are more efficient and accurate. Memory is like a muscle that can build from remember objects, to math tables to items contained in a room, page or sequential patterns. This is why site words are practiced so frequently.

Visual Form Constancy- The ability to understand that a form is constant even when in a different position or font. An A is still an A when it is tilted. Accurate form constancy assists us in reading forms that are presented in a variety of ways.

Visual Form Closure- The ability to picture a form closed or completed. This skill is significant in forming letters so that others can read your writing. If a lower case a is written as a u or an o with a line beside it interpreting and comprehending the writing becomes difficult.