EYE CAN LEARN!

The eyes are more than just the window to the soul, they are also an integral part of our ability to interpret, analyse and give meaning to what we see, in order to function well in the classroom, at home and in everyday life. These visual perceptual skills help us recognise and integrate visual stimuli with previously stored data to form a stable, predictable, familiar world. Visual perception allows us to understand, not just see.

Good visual perception depends on good visual acuity, the brain getting accurate information from the eyes before it can be processed. It is advisable for a child to have a visual assessment before starting school. Your optometrist will assess the general functioning of the eyes, as well as the health of the eyes and the optic nerve. He or she will determine whether a child is able to see accurately both close up and at a distance (visual acuity), and whether the eyes are aligned and able to work together to focus correctly.

Making sense of what we see is vital for classroom skills such as reading, writing and maths, as well as life skills such as reading signs and maps, finding objects in a busy space, and taking part in hobbies or sport. At school, visual perceptual skills are critical to learning. These skills can be broken down into separate categories, but they do not work in isolation. They need to function in an integrated combination for effective learning to take place.

Visual perceptual skills include:

visual discrimination, the ability to tell the difference between similar numbers, letters or words;

visual memory, the ability to recognise letters, numbers or words we’ve seen before;

visual spatial relations, the ability to determine left from right, and to perceive the position of objects in space, and words on a page;

visual figure-ground, the ability to locate or perceive an object or word from a background , without becoming confused by the background;

visual closure, the ability to visualise a whole word or object when only a partial image is seen;

visual form constancy, the ability to recognise and manipulate words or numbers in different contexts, regardless of changes in shape, size or manner of presentation.

When certain areas of visual perception are not functioning optimally, the child may still learn to read and write, but the learning process may be slower due to the amount of effort the child needs to use to compensate for his areas of difficulty. In the classroom, the teacher may notice that the child reverses letters or numbers, has trouble recognising the same word on a different page, confuses numbers, words or letters that look similar, has difficulty organising his work on the page, skips lines or loses his place when reading, or uses his finger to follow each word when reading. He may struggle with reading comprehension and mentally manipulating maths concepts.

The earlier these problems are detected, the better, whether by parents or teachers. Once his problems have been picked up, there are a number of therapies available to help him build and strengthen his visual perceptual skills and make learning an easier and more enjoyable experience for him.