Visual Skills

Pursuit Eye Movement

The ability of the eyes to closely follow a moving object.

Fixation

The ability for maintaining a steadily look on a single location.

Focus Change

Focus change or accommodation as it is also known is the ability to have clear visual definition on an object as its distance varies.

Peripheral Vision

Peripheral vision is the largest portion of our visual field and is the part of our vision that is outside the center of our gaze.

Depth Perception

Depth perception is the ability to judge distance or height between objects and see the world in three dimensions.

Binocular Stability

Binocular stability is the ability to maintain clear single binocular vision. Without binocular stability text will appear to be moving or readers tend to loose the line of text while reading.

Maintaining Attention

The ability to concentrate on a particular object or subject while ignoring other perceivable information.

Visualisation

To recall or form mental images or pictures.

Saccadic Movement

Saccadic movement is quick symmetrical movements of both eyes between two phases of fixation in the same direction.

Spatial World

Spatial Orientation

Spatial orientation is the ability of a person to correctly determine his/her body position in space. This involves the ability to understand directions, reversals and identify right and left on one’s own body.

Visualisation

Visualization is the ability to form a mental visual image thus when a person is able to act or process of interpreting in visual terms or of putting into visible form.

Position in Space

Position in space is the ability to perceive an object’s position in space relative to oneself and the direction in which it is turned. This is concepts such as in, out, down, in front of, behind, between, left and right.

Figure Ground

Figure ground is the visual relationship between foreground and background. In Gestalt-psychology it is known as identifying a figure from the background.

Hand-Eye & Eye-Hand coordination

The ability of the visual system to coordinate the information received through the eyes to control, guide and direct the hands in the successful achievement of a given task, such as catching, archery, gaming or writing. Eyes direct attention and the hands execute the task.

Foot-Eye & Eye Feet coordination

The ability of the visual system to coordinate the information received through the eyes to control, guide and direct the feet in the successful achievement of a given task, best observe in football players.Research done at the institute of Neurology in London confirms vision controls the movement of the foot.

Form Perception

Form perception is the ability to visually perceive objects in the world in response to the pattern of light that they cast on our retinas thus is the sensory discrimination of a pattern, shape or outline.

Saccadic Movement

Saccadic movement is quick symmetrical movements of both eyes between two phases of fixation in the same direction.

Gross Motor

Gross motor skills are the ability for the use or movement of arms, legs or body for walking, kicking, lifting, throwing, catching or sitting upright.

Body Image

Body image or awareness is the ability to understand the body’s movement in space in relation to other limbs and objects.

Bilateral Integration

The ability to use both sides of the body in a coordinated manner.

Hand-Eye Coordination

Hand-Eye coordination is the ability of the visual system to process the information received, coordinate it through the eyes and to command, guide and direct the hands to accomplish a given task.

Balance

Balance is the result of the visual (eyes) and vestibular systems (ears) as well as the proprioception (spacial awareness of body) working together to prevent people from falling over when walking or standing still.

Directionality

Laterality

Visual-auditory Integration or Auditory-visual Integration

Visual system

The visual system differentiates between variations in shape, colour, brightness, space, movement, height, distance, location etc.

Auditory system

The auditory system foresees access to sounds and vibrations from voices, instruments, machinery, nature etc. It differentiates between tone, rhythm, pitch, timber, volume, modulation and frequency.

Intergration of the Visual and Auditory systems

Visual and auditory integration are the processes of linking and understanding information taken in through the senses of sight (visual) and sound (auditory) thus working together to coordinate “seeing-hearing”. Visual-auditory integration and Auditory-visual integration are interchangeable: “You need to see to hear and you need to hear to see” Elsa du Plessis.

Research shows that the processes of visual skills in processing peripheral space and motion information is negatively affected by difficulties in the auditory system/ Once you improve the visual-auditory integration you also have a positive effecting many areas of visual and auditory function. Visual and auditory skills are very similar and both systems include:

1. Future ground memory
2. Visual closure/Auditory closure
3. Discrimination
4. Attention
5. Intercessory

When someone has poor Auditory visual integration they most likely have difficulty with:

1. Poor spelling – written
2. Poor spelling – auditory: sounding out sounds
3. Needs to give instructions or directions repeatedly
4. Trouble to learn to read with phonics

When someone has poor Auditory processing they most likely have difficulty with:

1. Cover their ears for specific sounds
2. Over reacting of intolerance to loads sounds – can be low or high
3. Over reaction or distraction to visual input that doesn’t impact other people; bright light, complex visual layout, objects, people,animals, objects or low light. When someone is hypo-sensitive to sound or vision stimuli they, don’t realise the danger of very loud sounds or very bright light.
4. They might listen to very loud music not realising they are damaging their ears.
5. They might look into a very bright light not realising they are damaging their eyes.

Auditory difficulties

The human brain gather all the sounds and frequencies that it will use to “hear” in the first 24 months after birth. If the ear was not exposed to a wide range of frequencies it will struggle to identify certain frequencies. For example: there are no R sound in the Japanese alphabet. It is very difficult for a Japanese person to learn to say an “r” sound.

Most problems for auditory difficulties are picked up between 6-8 years. Many problems experiences with visual auditory integration start from birth when the fluid in the middle ear doesn’t drain properly. Many people believe increased fluid in the ears are caused by dairy products. The fluid in the middle ear push on the inner ear. This impacts the vestibule system that will lead to problems with:

1. Balance
2. There is even evidence that immense pressure in the inner ear can lead to strabismus (squints) in children and the vestibular system help direct ocular motor.
3. Phonics
4. Auditory memory
5. Following instructions
6. Mental maths

If your child have chronic ear infections it is very important to visit an Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist who can check for fluid in the ears. In many cases there would be no visual signs or any obvious indications that there is fluid present in the ears. If your child struggles with any of the before mentioned points it is advised to check for fluid in the ears by ENT.

Treatment plans for visual-auditory integration problems include:

1. Auditory visual sequentially exercises
2. Tomatis Therapy
3. Forbrain