Specific Visual Perceptual Problems in daily life in children

Specific visual perceptual problems

Any dysfunction in different components of visual perception may lead to problems in activities of daily living.

·         Attention

If child’s state of alertness or arousal is impaired, he/she may demonstrate behaviors of over attentiveness, under attentiveness or poor sustained attention.

Children who are over attentive are easily distracted by visual stimuli around them rather then attend to task at hand. Children who are under attentive may have difficulty orienting to the visual stimuli, may habituate quickly to a visual stimuli and may fatigue easily. A child with difficulty in area of selective attention demonstrates a reduced ability to focus on a visual target. The child is easily confused and therefore does not obtain specific information needed for the task.

·         Memory

Child with visual memory deficits has poor or reduced ability to recognize visual information and to store visual information in short or long term memory. Child may have good memory for life experiences but not for factual material and may fail to relate information to prior knowledge. Child may demonstrate poor ability to use mnemonic strategies for storage.

·         Visual Discrimination

If this area is affected child may demonstrate an inadequate ability to recognize, match and categorize. Child may have difficulties matching the same shape presented in a different spatial orientation or may confuse similar shapes.

·         Object/form vision

Children with form constancy problems have difficulty recognizing forms and objects presented in different sizes, different orientations in space, or when there are differences in detail.

This may result in difficulty recognizing letters or words in different styles of print or in making transition from printed letters to cursive ones.

Child with visual closure deficit may be unable to identify a form or object if an incomplete presentation is made. e.g. child may not be able to differentiate between pen and pencil on his desk if they are partially covered by paper.

Child with figure-ground problems may not be able to pick out a specific toy from a shelf, and may have difficulty sorting and organizing personal belongings. These children may have difficulty attending to a word on a printed page because they cannot block out other words around it.

·         Spatial vision

A child with position in space difficulties has trouble discriminating among objects because of their placement in space. They may show letter reversals past age of 8 yrs and may show confusion regarding sequence of letters or numbers in a word (e.g. was/saw)  or math problem. Spacing letters and words while writing on a paper may also be a problem. Child may show difficulty in understanding directional language such as in, out, on, under, next to, up, down, in front of.

Problem in depth perception can affect child’s ability to walk through space and catch a ball. Child may be unable to visually determine when the surface plane has changed and may have difficulty with steps and curves. Transference of visual spatial notations across to visual planes can make copying from blackboard difficult.

A child with diminished topographical orientation may be easily lost and unable to find his/her way from one location to next.

Visual perceptual problems in performance areas

Effects of visual perceptual problems may be subtle in nature, with no obvious disabilities. However, when the child is asked to perform a visual perceptual task, he or she may be slow, or unable to perform the task.

The child with visual perceptual deficits may show problems with cutting, coloring, constructing with blocks or other construction toys, doing puzzles, using fasteners, and tying shoes. In grooming, there could be difficulty in using a mirror to comb and style hair, applying toothpaste to the brush, donning doffing clothes, prostheses and orthoses; tying shoes, matching colors etc.

 ·         Problems in reading

According to Gibson (1971) different characteristics of printed (written) information necessary for reading are:

       Word’s graphic configuration

       Orthography (order of letters)

       Phonology (sound represented)

       Semantics (meaning)

Segmenting of written words in early reading needs a variety of skills. Child must be able to recognize individual letter symbols. It requires visual attention, memory and discrimination.

In the dysfunction there is interference with acquisition of sight vocabulary. Child has good language abilities but trouble processing written words.

Children with visual memory problems may be unable to remember the visual shape of letters and words.

Children with weakness of visual-verbal associative memory have difficulty establishing easily retrievable sound symbol associations. Children with difficulty with active working memory cannot hold one aspect of reading process in suspension while pursuing another component. The child cannot recall the beginning of sentence while reading end of it.

Children with visual discrimination deficit may not be able to recognize symbols and therefore may be slow to master alphabets and numbers.

Confusions over letters “p, q and g” and “a and o” as well as letter reversal may ensue, such as notorious differentiation between “b and d”.

·         Problems in spellings

Children who have strong sound-symbol association sense may make dyseidetic errors i.e.  Spellings words phonetically but incorrectly. Visual sequential memory is necessary for remembering the sequence of letter in a word.

·         Problem in handwriting

Children may have problem in correct letter formation, spelling, mechanics of grammar, punctuation and capitalization, and formulation of sequential flow of ideas necessary for written communication.

Child does not recognize error in his own handwriting, and may be unable to recognize letter in different prints and thus have difficulty in copying from different types of print to handwriting.

Child may show reversal of letters such as “m, w, b, d, s, c, and z”. Over spacing and under spacing might be there and staying within the margins could be a trouble. Also there is difficulty in adapting letter size to space provided in paper.

 ·         Problem in mathematics

There is difficulty in correctly aligning columns for calculation and thus incorrect answers. Worksheets with rows and columns may be disorganizing to children. Children with poor visual memory may have difficulty using calculator. Multiple step problems are difficult.