Visual Processing Therapy

Visual Processing Therapy can help both children and adults, and provide life-long benefits.  Visual Processing Therapy is a type of treatment that you may need if you experience difficulties with:

Visual Processing Speed

This affects the pace at which an individual takes in information, makes sense of it and then responds.  Visual processing speed deficits (slow processing speed) has nothing to do with how smart an individual is, but rather how fast information is taken in and used.  This can also affect executive functioning skills. These are the thinking skills that affect planning, setting goals, responding to problems or staying focused on tasks.

Visual Agnosia

This leads to difficulty, or the inability, to visually identify letters, numbers, words or objects that are “known” to them.    In the classroom setting this leads to difficulty remembering letters of the alphabet, sight words, information for tests, etc.

Visual Closure

This leads to difficulty identifying “part” versus “whole”.  The ability to recognize an object or word when only parts of it are visible.  In the classroom setting this can have tremendous impact on spelling as it is difficult to recognize a word if a letter is missing.

Visual Discrimination (Form Discrimination)

This leads to difficulty, or the inability, to discriminate differences between objects based on their individual characteristics.  In the classroom setting this leads to difficulty in reading and math, with difficulty identifying patterns; difficulty in correctly identifying letters, numbers or symbols; reading from left to right; difficulty in perceiving differences between similar letters or words such as m and n, b and d, p and q.  Visual discrimination affects reading fluency.

Visual Figure-Ground

This leads to difficultly, or the inability, to see a shape or character hidden in a background; visually discriminating a shape or image from its background. In the classroom setting this leads to difficulty locating a specific piece of information on a page.

Visual Memory

There are two different types of visual memory (1) short-term visual memory and (2) long-term visual memory.  Short-term visual memory is the ability to recall something seen within a very short period of time and with little interference or distraction.  Long-term visual memory is the ability to recall something seen some time ago. In the classroom this leads to difficulty with reading comprehension or performing well on tests.

Visual-Motor Processing, also referred to as Visual-Motor Integration

This leads to difficulty coordinating information received by the eyes and coordinating with the movement of other body parts.  For instance, seeing the pitcher throw the ball and knowing when to swing the bat in order to hit the ball. In the classroom setting this leads to difficulty copying information from the white board to paper.

Visual Sequencing

This leads to difficulty recalling the order of letters, symbols, words or pictures.  In the classroom setting this leads to difficulty remembering sight words, or reversing or misreading words, letters or numbers as well as aligning numbers in math problems or organizing and solving math problems.

Visual-Spatial

This leads to difficulty identifying position in space, both of one's self as well as other objects.  This is the ability to understand “near” and “far”. In the classroom setting this leads to difficulty writing or coloring inside the lines, spacing letters and words properly on the page when writing, judging time or reading maps.

Poor visual working memory can contribute to the struggles experienced by individuals with autism.  Study results suggest that individuals with autism have a much worse visual working memory as compared to the general population.   Visual working memory functions much like a mental blackboard. Individuals with poor visual working memory have increased difficulty understanding math concepts or solving math problems in their head – even simple addition and subtraction problems.

Similar studies suggest that visual working memory may play an important role in developing social skills in children with autism.  We use visual working memory to read body language and pickup other social cues in order to respond appropriately. Individuals who have challenges processing nonverbal communication are more likely to experience awkwardness in social settings.