Visual Perception Skills

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 strong visual acuity and still have problems with visual perceptual processing.

Why is Visual Perception Important?

- Good visual perceptual skills are important for many every day skills such as reading, writing, cutting, drawing, dressing as well as many other life skills.

- Without the ability to complete these every day tasks, a child’s self esteem can suffer and their academic and play performance can be compromised.

What are the Building Blocks Necessary to Develop Visual Perception?

1. Sensory Processing: Accurate registration, interpretation and response to sensory stimulation in the environment and the child’s own body.

2. Visual Attention: The ability to focus on important visual information and filter out unimportant background information.

3. Visual Discrimination: The ability to determine differences or similarities in objects based on size, color, shape, etc.

4. Visual Memory: The ability to recall visual traits of a form or object.

5. Visual Spatial Relationships: Understanding the relationships of objects within the environment.

6.Visual Sequential-Memory: The ability to recall a sequence of objects in the correct order.

7. Visual Figure Ground: The ability to locate something in a busy background.

8. Visual Form Constancy: The ability to know that a form or shape is the same, even if it has been made smaller/larger or has been turned around.

9. Visual Closure: The ability to recognize a form or object when part of the picture is missing.