Visual Motor and Visual Perceptual: Activities for Improving Visual Perception

These instructions are for Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) patients to strengthen and improve their vision.

Visual discrimination: the ability to tell the difference between forms, shapes and designs

Your child may have problems with visual discrimination if they:

• Have problems with matching or sorting activities.

• Have difficulty noting differences between letters of similar shapes.

• Avoid tasks that are visually "busy," for example board games.

Suggestions to help improve visual discrimination:

• Play or match dominoes.

• Sort objects by size, shape, and color such as silverware or playing cards.

• Make a scrapbook of leaves, stamps or stickers. Place objects of similar shapes and sizes on the same page.

• Puzzles

• Treasure hunt: send your child on a hunt for certain objects. For example, have them find all red things or all round objects.

• Practice making shapes and designs with pipe cleaners, straws or popsicle sticks.

• While reading a book, have your child point out certain objects, like all the small things or tall things. Cut out shapes and then cut them into pieces to be put together as a puzzle.

• Have your child cut out objects in a magazine picture.

• Cut out individual pictures of objects from a magazine. Trace them onto construction paper so that you have an outline of each picture. Have your child match the pictures to the outlines.

Visual memory: the ability to remember what you have seen

Your child may have problems with visual memory if they:

• Get confused by similar items.

• Have difficulty spelling their name, or don't recognize it when written.

• Take a long time to copy items from the board or from one page to another.

• Do not recognize familiar people or places.

• Forget certain details of objects.

Suggestions to help improve visual memory:

• Search Where's Waldo? books

• Play memory-matching games.

• Arrange some household items on a tray. Allow your child to look for 1 minute. Cover the tray and ask your child to list all items they remember. To make it more difficult, increase the number of objects on the tray.

Sequential memory: the ability to remember what you have seen in the correct order

Your child may have problems with sequential memory if they:

• Have trouble with spelling words or reversing letters when spelling words

• Cannot follow directions well.

• Have trouble copying from the board or missing letters when copying.

Suggestions to help sequential memory:

• Using memory cards. Start with 4-5 pairs, divide pairs into two piles. Arrange your cards in a line and allow your child to look for 20-30 seconds. Cover up your cards and ask your child to arrange their cards in the same order. Increase the number of cards to challenge your child.

• Take paper and assorted colored crayons. While your child watches, draw a series of dots in a row, starting with 2 or 3. Cover the dots and have your child draw the dots in the same order. As your child's memory improves, increase the difficulty. You can increase the number of dots. You can also have your child perform a task, such as running to the door and back, before drawing the dots. This will distract your child and increase the length of time they have to remember the pattern.

• With Lego or Duplo bricks, make a design and cover it up with a towel. Ask your child to remember and copy it.

• Either show or tell your child 3 to 4 movements, like jump, roll and clap, and have them repeat the sequence. Add more steps to make it a challenge.

• Arrange some matchbox cars. Cover them and change the order. Ask your child which car was moved.

• Thread different colored beads onto a string and let your child see them for a short time. Remove the beads and ask your child to re-thread them in the same order.

• Show your child a "busy" picture for 10 seconds. Cover the picture and ask your child to tell you what was in the picture.

• With the same "busy" picture, point to a series of things. Ask your child to remember and point to them in the same order.

Visual-spatial relationships: understanding how objects relate to one another in space

Your child may have problems with visual-spatial relationships if they:

• Have difficulty completing puzzles.

• Write letters too close together, too far apart, or on the wrong parts of the page.

• Have difficulty copying pictures or designs, or building a project from an example. Have problems knowing how close or far away an object is, or they often bump into things.

• Reverse letters and numbers when writing.

Suggestions to help improve visual-spatial relationships:

• Puzzles: increase the number of pieces

• Mazes

• Match and sort colors, shapes, and sizes using flowers, leaves, silverware, socks, buttons or puzzles.

• Lego/Duplo: Ask your child to copy designs as well as create their own. Encourage your child to tell you how pegs or blocks are spaced in comparison to each other, for example in front of, behind or on top.

• Make an obstacle course for your child. Give directions that involve going under, over, around, through and in between objects or to the right and left.

• Have your child set the table, put away clothes and organize toys.

• Ask your child to give you directions to familiar places like the supermarket or school.

• Sit back-to-back with your child. You should each have paper and crayons. Ask your child to draw simple pictures using shapes and lines. For example, draw a red circle in the middle of the page; draw a green dot under the circle and a blue line above it. Compare your pictures. They should look the same.

Form constancy: the ability to find a form in a background despite it being smaller, larger, turned, or hidden

Your child may have problems with visual form constancy if they:

• Struggle when reading from books or worksheets that use different fonts.

• Have issues identifying similar shapes.

Suggestions to help improve visual form constancy:

• Ask your child to find objects such as circles or squares within a picture.

• Find similar shapes within a space, for example, all the square shapes in a room.

• Puzzles

Visual figure ground: the ability to find an object hidden in a background

Your child may have problems with visual figure ground if they:

• Cannot complete games such as Where's Waldo or hidden pictures.

• Have trouble reading from the board at school.

• Have difficulty completing worksheets which contain a lot of problems, words, or pictures.

• Have trouble reading from small-print books or lose their place when reading.

• Cannot pay attention to one person or thing when in a room with a lot of people or decorations.

• Are easily distracted.

Suggestions to help improve visual figure ground:

• Ask your child to pick out certain crayons from a box.

• Encourage your child to do activities, which require cutting, coloring, pasting, tearing, and matching.

• Play I Spy.

• Play Perfection, Bingo, or Lotto

• Find certain objects in a picture. Use workbooks or storybooks.

• Puzzles, sorting, and matching games.

• Cut out one part of a very "busy" magazine picture.

• Hide a small, familiar object, such as a shoe or a button, in a room. Have your child look for the object while giving clues as to how close the child is.

Visual closure: the ability to look at an incomplete drawing and visualize what it would look like if complete

Your child may have problems with visual closure if they:

• Cannot find the missing object in incomplete pictures.

• Have trouble remembering how letters are formed and writing letters correctly.

• Have trouble finding objects, especially in a cluttered area or if only part of the object is showing.

Suggestions to help improve visual closure:

• Dot-to-dot pictures and puzzles. Try having your child guess what the dot-to-dot picture will be before completing it.

• Jigsaw puzzles with greater than 2 pieces: Begin with large pieces. Ask your child what picture the pieces are likely to make.

• Draw the left half of picture, such as a house, and have the child complete the right side.

• Hangman

• Scrabble Junior, construction games and activities, like Lego, model airplanes and cars.

Reviewed on December 7, 2022, by Jennifer Strebel, OTR/L