Effects of Remedial therapy on visual perception. Remedial therapy in Mumbai.

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 (for example “20/20 vision”). A person can have 20/20 vision 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, completing puzzles, cutting, drawing, completing math problems, dressing, finding your sock on the bedroom floor as well as many other skills. Without the ability to complete everyday tasks, a child’s self esteem can suffer and their academic and play performance is compromised.

What are the building blocks that are necessary to develop visual perception?

• Sensory Processing: Accurate registration, interpretation & response to sensory stimulation in the environment & the child’s own body.
• Visual Attention: The ability to focus on important visual information & filter out background information that are unimportant.
• Visual Discrimination: The ability to determine differences or similarities in objects based on size, colour, shape, etc.
• Visual Memory: The ability to recall visual characteristics of a form or object.
• Visual Spatial Relation Ships: Understanding the relationships of objects within the environment.
• Visual Sequential-Memory: The ability to recall a sequence of objects in the exact order.
• Visual Figure Ground: The ability to detect something in a busy background.
• Visual Form Constancy: The ability to know that a form or shape is the same, even if it has been made smaller or larger or has been turned around.
• Visual Closure: The ability to recognize a form or object when part of the picture is missing.

How can I tell if my child has problems with visual perception?

If a child has difficulties with visual perception they might have difficulty:

• Completing puzzles or dot to dots.
• Planning actions in relation to objects around them.
• With spatial concepts such as “in, out, on, under, next to, up, down, in front of.”
• Differentiating between “b, d, p, q”
• Reversing numbers or letters when writing.
• Losing place on a page when reading or writing.
• Remembering left and right.
• Forgetting where to start reading.
• Sequencing letters or numbers in words or math problems.
• Remembering the alphabet in sequence,
• Coping from one place to another (e.g. from board, from book, from one side of the paper to the other).
• Dressing (i.e. matching shoes or socks).
• Discriminating between size of letters and objects.
• Remembering sight words.
• Completing partially drawn pictures or stencils.
• Attending to a word on a printed page due to his/her inability to block out other words around it.
• Filtering out visual distractions such as colorful bulletin boards or movement in the room in order to attend to the task at hand.
• Sorting and organizing personal belongings (e.g. may appear disorganized or careless in work).
• With hidden picture activities or finding a specific item in a cluttered desk.

What other problems can occur when a child has difficulties with visual perception?

When a child has visual perception difficulties, they might also have difficulties with:

Academic performance: The ease and skill with which they can complete academic tasks.
Attention and concentration: Sustained effort, doing activities without distraction and being able to hold that effort long enough to get the task done.
Self regulation: The ability to obtain, maintain and change one’s emotion, behaviour, attention and activity level appropriate for a task or situation in a socially acceptable manner.
Behaviour: They may avoid or refuse to participate in activities that require visual perceptual skills.
Frustration: With precise eye and hand tasks.
Avoidance: They may prefer to get others to perform tasks for them under their direction, rather than actually doing themselves (e.g. “Daddy, draw me a house”, or “build me a rocket”, with refusal to do it themselves).
Organization: They may have difficulty keeping track of and organizing belongings.

Remedial Therapy to enhance Visual Perception: A Special Educator/ remedial therapist can in-calculate the following tips and techniques to enhance Visual and spatial perception for a child. It may include:

Visual cues: For example, use a coloured dot or sticker to show what side of the page to start writing on or reading from, or place a text mark on stick on the inside of the child’s shoes so they know which foot to put them on (dots face inwards).
Directional arrows: To help with direction or starting position (e.g. for letter formation).
Graph paper: To help with word spacing and sizing. Highlight the line: To encourage correct line alignment.
Paper copies: Provide the child work that is to be copied on a piece of paper to put on their desk, rather than asking them to copy it from the board.
Alphabet strip: Place on the child’s table that they can refer to for correct letter formation.
Eliminate clutter: Encourage the child to keep their desk clear of distractions and clutter. Position desk away from distractions: Sit the child’s desk in an area closer to the front to avoid the distractions of other students.
Eliminate visual distractions: Remove as much of the visually stimulating classroom wall decorations as possible, especially near the child’s desk.
Keep worksheets clear and simple: Avoid unnecessary decorations (e.g. place only one activity on a page, remove pretty borders on worksheets).
Outline boundaries: Use a red marker to outline the boundaries for coloring, mazes or cutting tasks. Break visual activities into small steps: When working on puzzles, present one piece at a time and cover unneeded pieces of the puzzle.

What activities can help improve visual perception?

Hidden pictures games in books such as “Where’s Wally”. Picture drawing: Practice completing partially drawn pictures. Dot-to-dot worksheets or puzzles.
Review work: Encourage your child to identify mistakes in written material.
Memory games: Playing games such as Memory.
Sensory activities: Use bendable things such as pipe cleaners to form letters and shapes (because feeling a shape can help them visualize the shape). The letters can then be glued onto index cards, and later the child can touch them to “feel” the shape of the letter.
Construction-type activities such as Duplo, Lego or other building blocks. Flash cards with a correct letter on one side and an incorrectly formed letter on the other side. Have the child try to draw the letter correctly, then turn over the card to see if it is right. (Have them write in sand or with finger paint to make it more fun).
Word search puzzles that require you to look for a series of letter.
Copy 3-D block designs
Identify objects by touch: Place plastic letters into a bag, and have the child identify the letter by “feel”.

The following Visual related areas should be covered extensively whilst setting an Individual Education Program IEP for the child:
Visual perceptual skills are the brain's ability to make sense of what the eyes see. It is important for everyday activities such as dressing, eating, writing, and playing. There are seven different categories for visual perceptual skills. We will review each of these categories, as well as some visual perceptual activities that are helpful for children.

Visual spatial relations: Visual spatial relations is the ability to determine one form or part of a form that is turned in a different direction than the others. This is why some of our children have such a hard time recognizing b and d or p and q. They don't understand that just because it's rotated, it's a different letter. They also have difficulty differentiating between in and out, over and under, and left and right, because those are a spatial skills concept.

Sequential memory: Sequential memory is the ability to remember a series of forms and find it among other forms. If your child is having a hard time sequencing the alphabet, or copying from one place to another, this may be a problem with sequential memory. Sometimes, even with older elementary children, when they're copying sentences off the board, they will skip words. Or, when a child is copying sentences, they're copying one letter at a time. They're not seeing it as a whole word that they can write, but just each individual letter. This is a sequential memory problem.

Visual discrimination: Visual discrimination is the ability to differentiate between objects and forms. This includes skills like being able to identify money and sort coins or other objects. If they're not able to discriminate the differences between or the similarities between objects or pictures, they're going to have a difficult time differentiating between n and m, b and d, and p and q.

Form constancy: Form constancy is the ability to see a form and find it among other forms, although it is sized differently or rotated. Again, this is going to be a reason why some children will have trouble recognizing letters and numbers (e.g., recognizing that 6 and 9 are two different numbers).

Visual memory: This is a little different than visual sequential memory. Visual memory is the ability to store visual details in short-term memory, such as recalling a phone number. Reading comprehension is going to be affected when visual memory is deficient. Think about showing a photograph to someone, and then taking it away and asking them questions about it. A child who has problems with visual memory will have difficulty remembering facts about the picture.

Visual closure: Visual closure is the ability to fill in the missing details into an incomplete shape. This requires abstract problem solving. A good example of this is working on puzzles; being able to put a picture together in your mind and to piece it together correctly. This also will cause a problem with writing and spelling. With spelling, a child with visual closure deficits won't know the ends of the word or the middle of the word. For writing, a child with visual closure deficits will not be able to know if a word is complete.

Visual figure ground: This is the ability to perceive a form and find it hidden in a conglomerated ground of matter. For example, asking a child to find the blue crayon in their pencil box. Visual figure ground is being able to filter out all the other crayons to look for that blue crayon. The adult equivalent of using visual figure ground skills would be when we are rummaging through our junk drawer to find something we need. Hidden picture activities are useful for children to work on their visual figure ground skills (e.g., Highlights books or Where's Waldo books).

Also read: https://mpowerminds.com/blog/Five-signs-that-a-child-needs-a-remedial-therapist-Find-the-best-places-in-Mumbai-to-avail-the-best-remedial-therapy

Some examples of activities to encourage visual perceptual include:

Paper mazes and marble mazes

Connect the dot activities

Hidden pictures

Puzzles

Copying pictures or forms. You can start with various simple shapes, just copying, and then interlock shapes together on paper and have them copy that as well.

Wooden blocks

Patterning

Matching and sorting Why should I seek Remedial therapy if I notice difficulties with visual perception in my child?

Therapeutic Remedial intervention to help a child with visual perception difficulties is important to:

Improve ability in and persistence with visual tasks.
Ensure the child is able to engage in/complete academic tasks.
Help the child to complete self care tasks, such as putting shoes on the right feet.
Avoid the child becoming disengaged in an academic environment due to difficulties completing visual activities (e.g. writing, cutting, drawing).
Avoid frustrations experienced by parents, teachers and children when a child is struggling to remain engaged in academic activities.
Help maintain and develop a positive sense of well being.
Ensure that the child doesn’t fall behind their peers in development of skills such as handwriting, spelling and maths.

If left untreated what can difficulties with visual perception lead to?

When children have difficulties with visual perception, they might also have difficulties with:

Anxiety and stress in a variety of situations leading to difficulty reaching their academic potential.
Difficulties completing busy work sheets or following visual instructions.
Difficulties accessing the curriculum because unable to attend to the appropriate visual information.
Difficulties dressing independently and managing other self care tasks independently.
Difficulties completing exams due to difficulty blocking out unimportant visual information.
Poor self esteem when a child compares their abilities with their peers.
Poor handwriting skills.

Therefore, we may conclude that Remedial Therapy / teaching plays a crucial and active part in enhancing the visual skills of a child.

Looking for remedial therapy in Mumbai? You can avail remedial therapy in Mumbai at the below mentioned address:

MPOWER- THE CENTRE (MUMBAI)

1/155, 15, Nyaymurti Sitaram
Patkar Marg, Khareghat Colony,
Hughes Road, Mumbai – 400007
mpowerminds.info@abet.co.in
www.mpowerminds.com
+91 22 23828133
+91 22 23856228
+91 9702800044

MPOWER - THE FOUNDATION (MUMBAI)

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Opp. Bhatia Hospital, Tardeo,
Mumbai - 400 007.
+91 22 2386 8650
+91 22 2387 5147
+91 81087 99299

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