Perceptual vision is a skill that enables a child’s brain to correctly understand and process what their eyes are seeing. This skill is especially important once your child is ready and beginning to read.  

Your child must learn how to not only ‘see’ the world but ‘understand’ the world around them by processing the information that is sent to the brain from the eyes.

Our visual perception tests are based around what the brain sees (and perceives), rather than just what the eyes see since this is not always the same. Seeing the world is not enough, but more importantly a child and an individual need to understand what the world is around them to process the information.

This is often seen with reversal of letters and numbers.

At Kiddies Eye Care our optometrist is experienced in conducting visual perception testing.

Test for Ocular Motor Skills – DEM

The DEM™ test provides an objective method of assessing fixational and saccadic activity during reading and non-reading tasks.

An example of having good ocular motor skills allows you to control your eyes to track when you’re reading so that you don’t lose your place.

Test for Visual MotorSkills- VMI- The Test of Visual Motor Integration (Beery)   

·      Berry VMI offers a way to screen for visual-motor deficits that can lead to learning, behaviour, and neuropsychological problems. While it is used primarily with young children, it can also be administered to adolescents and adults. It helps assess the extent to which individuals can integrate their visual and motor abilities.

Put more simply, once the eyes see, they then need to instruct the body to do. It involves trust of the visual system and the body, which is often seen when trying out new skills like riding a bike, or even copying off the board.  It is strongly connected to balance coordination and movement.

Sentence Copy Test (Wold)

·      The Wold is a predictor of some areas of academic performance. These areas include overall classroom performance (core battery), math performance, reading, expressive and receptive language skills

The Test of Visual Perceptual Skills (TVPS)

The TVPS measures these skill areas based on a series of multiple choice line drawings. Here are some of the building blocks that make up your child’s visual perception:

a)   Visual Discrimination

Visual discrimination is critical for seeing letters or words as different. Difficulties in this skill area can make “p” look a lot like “q” or “the” look a lot like “then”

b)   Form Constancy

Form constancy is important for recognizing letters or words in different contexts. For example, a child must know that the word “the” is the same whether they see it written in a text book, on a marker board, or in a magazine article.

c)   Visual Memory

Visual memory is important for reading comprehension. A child has to remember what they read and recognize a word from one page to the next. Difficulties with this skill can also make copying from a board or book so much more challenging. These children might take forever to copy an assignment because they can’t retain the information to transfer it from the board to their own page.

d)   Visual Sequential Memory

Visual Sequential memory is very important for spelling. Some children might know the letters in a word but can’t get their order correct.

e)   Visual Closure

Visual closure is important for reading and comprehending what we see quickly. Difficulty with this skill might mean that a child has to study a word or sentence carefully before they know what it is.

f)     Visual Spatial Relations

Visual spatial relations are important for appropriate letter orientation and avoiding reversals...

As a young child learns to read and write, reversing or transposing a letter here or there is an expected mistake. If those reversals continue past the age of 8, there may be an issue with what is known as reversal frequency: mistaking a b for a d, or a p for a q.

g)   Visual Figure Ground

Difficulties with this skill can leave kids lost as they look for specific information on a busy worksheet.

Gardner Reversals Frequency Test

Gardner Reversals Frequency Test -Testing for letter and number reversals can be accomplished with the Gardner test. It differentiates between types of reversals. This test assesses the ability to understand concepts of left and right. This task expects the child to identify numbers and letters that are presented in the correct form against the same symbols in reverse. Difficulties in this area commonly cause reversal of letters and words when writing/copying/reading, which may impede word recognition and comprehension. This test is useful in diagnosis of children with learning disabilities.

Tests for Visual Analysis Skills: TVAS Rosner

Test of Visual Analysis Skills (Rosner) evaluates the ability to understand the relationship of parts to wholes.   We must analyse and discriminate visually presented information, and combine it with past experience to make a judgment to obtain meaning

Children with difficulties may have delayed learning of the alphabet, poor automatic recognition of words (sight word vocabulary), difficulty completing basic maths, confusion between similar-looking words and difficulty spelling non regular words.

Test for Visual Auditory Skills (TAAS)

The TAAS evaluates the child’s ability to identify the separate sounds in spoken words and the temporal sequence of those sounds

It helps identify children who do not possess the necessary auditory skills for efficient learning.

When visual and auditory skills integrate well, the result is improved reflex function which in turn can improve behavioural and emotional regulation and enhance learning. Children with difficulties in his area have

Difficulty with sound-symbol associations, have difficulty with spelling and are slow readers. 

 common eye tests we offer