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does anyone have a child with visual perception disorder? my sons teacher thinks that he may have this disorde


kidscare October 20, 2009


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healthy11 October 20, 2009

Hi. Did your son have to get a comprehensive eye exam before entering school? I'm not talking about a cursory screening. There are special developmental optometrists who seem to concentrate on visual perception disorders in children, but even a regular experienced optometrist should be able to tell you if problems are apparent.
My son, in kindergarten, was seen by our regular optometrist, and he noted that our son's eyes didn't seem to be tracking together, even though his vision was 20/20 in each eye individually. When he tried to read the letters on the chart, he would skip some from line to line. Obviously, that can make reading a very difficult task, as well as trying to shift focus from looking at something written on the blackboard, to trying to copy notes on a page, for instance.
In our case, the regular optometrist suggested a follow up visit in a few months, to see if our son's condition improved over time, or if he should refer us to a specialist. Our regular optometrist recommended placing the top edge of piece of paper under each line of a story while keeping the rest of the words covered(moving it down as I'd read each line to my son, to expose the next line) and that seemed to help him to develop better left-to-right movement, and keep his eyes working "at the same level." We did not end up seeing a specialist, but I believe the parent who leads the Learning and Attention Difficulties Group at did have her child seen by a developmental optometrist. I recommend you join that group and repost your question there.


michellea October 21, 2009

My son has dyslexia (difficulty reading) and dysgraphia (difficulty writing) and he scores very low on many tests of viual perception.

Visual perception is the ability to take in visual information (what you see through your eyes) and make sense of it. There are a few sub categories:
Visual discrimination: ability to look at objects and pictures and recognize if the are the same of different
Visual memory: ability to remember even for a short time something you have seen
Visual closure: Ability to mentally visualize what something looks like even if it is only partially visible.
Visual Figure ground: Ability to distinguish an object from it's back ground (find a pencil in the junk drawer, find your spot on the page)
Form constancy: ability to recognize objects or forms as the same regardless of size, color or orientation. (recognize a letter regardless of the font style, size or orientation on the page)
Position in Space: Ability to recognize the spatial relationship between yourself and objects in the environment as well as relationship between objects. This important for directional language concepts such as up and down, left and right
Depth Perception: Ability to judge how far away something is from you or another object such as judging the depth of the stairs when walking up or down.

Difficulties in these areas can make writing, copying, math, reading and other tasks difficult. A person can have trouble in all areas or only one or two. Often time occupational therapy and accommodations can help in the school setting.

Has your child ever been evaluated by the school for learning difficulties? How does he do with table top academic tasks? Gross motor skills? Writing? math?

It sounds like your son's teacher is perceptive - this is good. If he is having any kind of struggle, I suggest that you refer him to the school for an academic and OT evaluation. Simply write a letter to the principal asking for the evaluation and briefly summarize yours and teachers concerns. Under federal special ed law (IDEA) they must evaluate. If they find he needs extra help, you will work with them to write an IEP (individual ed program) that outlines the services he needs to get him up to speed.


user5533450 June 24, 2014

I know this was an old post, but did you get the answers you were looking for. I have gone through it all with my school district and after 100's of hours of research and going from doctor to doctor, it turned out my son has a visual processing disorder, an auditory processing disorder, and before we started treatment, the two systems were not connected and couldn't talk to each other. Reconnection of the system was a much simpler fix, however, it's not like ADHD where there is a pill that fixes the problem. This exercises for this essentially is slowly retraining the brain. If you need any further details regarding our experience (or lack there of with our school district) just let me know. I am happy to talk via phone if needed. These kids, when left untreated experience depression and a sense of failure because no matter what they try they fail to see success. My son, was told he just didn't care, that he was basically lazy, and at the end after he school spent their 4 hours of testing with someone who didn't know my son, they concluded his IQ was low and he would struggle because of it for possibly his lifetime..... or they said, maybe he has a focus issue. I have an older child who is the poster child for ADHD (w/o hyperactivity) who is brilliant and will outscore standardized tests if he wants to, but if there is something that if more interesting, he's gone....My second child did not have ADHD, and the fact was he was putting together Lego sets meant for 18-20 year-olds when he was three or 4. Something was being missed. Let me know if you need more details regarding our path. Hopefully it may help, as well as all someone to avoid the pot holes.


parbenhud June 30, 2014

To the recent post member: Please let me know who or what entity you used to get help. I appreciate the information.

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