Part III: Spatial Relations

For the last couple weeks we have been talking about Perceptual Skills. I hope you are enjoying them as much as I am. Today we are going to blog about Spatial Relations. I found a great website by Michelle Pratt, who is an Occupational Therapist.  I loved her website because she gave fun activities to improve each Perceptual Skill. Here is her take on Spatial Relations:

Visual Spatial Relations

Visual Spatial perception provides us with information about our environment. The way a child perceives space and their position or orientation within that space can affect their gross motor skills and classroom performance. It is the ability to distinguish differences among similar objects or forms. This skill helps children in understanding relationships and recognizing underlying concepts. This area is closely related to the problem solving and conceptual skills required for higher level science and math.  

Visual Spatial Orientation-- helps us with letter reversals. The most common cause of reversals in older children is a lack of visual spatial development--consistently knowing left from right, either in relationship to their own bodies or in the world around them. Children with poor visual processing have not developed adequate skills in visual perception and spatial orientation, such as laterality and directionality. 

Definition

Is the ability to understand and interpret relationships:

a. Between oneself and other people. E.g. Stand behind Mommy

b. Between oneself and other objects. E.g. put the chair beside Daddy

c. Objects in relation to other objects. E.g. put the brick in the box.

A child with visual spatial problems may have difficulty with:

1. Interpreting instructions. E.g. write your name at the top of the page.

2. Dressing. Putting garments on up side down or being unable to turn them the right way round.

3. Correctly positioning equipment, such as utensils at meal times.

4. Moving themselves in space. In PE games or when doing gymnastics or obstacle courses.

5. Tracking mazes.

6. Copying patterns or Lego models.

7. Producing 3D drawings E.g. Houses, boxes or cubes.

8. Setting out work on a page, particularly mathematical problems or diagrams.

9. Labeling diagrams.

Activities to help

Activities for yourself and one other person or a group1. Simon Says
2. Leapfrog
3. Crawl under someone's legs
4. Stand beside the tallest person
5. Cat and mouse games
6. Arrange people to make shapes
7. Obstacle courses
8. Hopscotch
9. Games with hoops, beanbags and boxes.
10. Setting a table
11. Board games e.g. Othello, chess, etc.
12 Craft activities e.g. collage, origami
13. Construction games e.g. Lego, building a railway track or fort.

Copying Activities

Activities requiring copying 3D to 3D

1. Construction toys e.g. Lego
2. Multi link
3. Peg patterns

4. Patterns with objects using different shapes, sizes and colors.

Activities requiring copying 2D to 3D

In these the child makes the model from copying a card, picture or photograph.

1. Block or peg patterns
2. Model making from pictorial instructions e.g. Lego, K'nex
3. Following a recipe when cooking
4. Origami, copying diagrams in a book.

Activities requiring copying 2D to 2D

1. Copying a picture

2. Copying from the whiteboard

3. Constructing a drawing.

The above activities are great in more ways than one. We all know I love hands on activities more than electronics! Give some of these activities a try and next week we will talk about Form Constancy! Have a great weekend!

Perceptual Skills, Part II: Visual Memory

Today we'll continue our series on Perceptual Skills and discuss Visual Memory. Previously, we have touched on the importance of visualization. We talked about how it can affect different subjects in school. Let's do an updated review on Visual Memory.

So what is Visual Memory? Visual Memory helps us recall what we've seen. Obtaining maximum visual information in the shortest possible time provides for optimal academic and athletic performance. The ability to retain this information over an adequate period of time is essential for proficiency in reading comprehension and spelling.

The Visual Memory sub-test on the Perceptual Motor Evaluation (PME) measures the ability to remember a single form. If there are dysfunctions in visual memory, it may cause students to have difficulty recognizing the same word on the next page and reduce reading comprehension. It will also result in prolonged time copying assignments and difficulties transferring information from one place to another. 

Does your child have challenges with remembering a word they just read? If so, there is a solution! Through Vision Therapy we can develop good Visual Memory skills. Stay tuned next time because we will review Spatial Relations!

Perceptual Skills, Part I

Last week Dr. Durocher and I were chatting about perceptual skills and what each meant. Before starting Vision Therapy, we evaluate every child through a Perceptual Motor Evaluation (PME). It is about 1.5 hours of testing and we examine each perceptual skill. Each of the seven sets can cause an array of problems so over the next couple of weeks we will go into details about the seven perceptual skills.

Here are the seven perceptual skills:

• Visual Discrimination
• Visual Memory
• Spatial Relations
• Form Constancy
• Sequential Memory
• Figure Ground
• Visual Closure

In today's blog, let's discuss visual discrimination.

Visual discrimination lets us see differences between objects that are similar. For example, when we read, it's visual discrimination that let's us see that the words "was" and "saw" are different, even though they have the same letters.

There are many different stages to visual discrimination:

1. Difficulty with vowels in words; ex. went and want, ride or rode, horse and house, confused and confessed.
2. Difficulty with consonants in words; ex. then and when, would and could, ever and even, and presents and prevents.
3. Reversals are displayed; ex. was and saw, big and dig, spot and stop, conserve and conversed.
4. But the most common problem for our students is they do not focus on individual letters of a word; ex. when as then, then as when. They often skip over the initial letter sound.

Does your child confuse similar words? If so, there is a solution! Through Vision Therapy we can develop good visual discrimination skills. We can teach students to establish consistent left-right eye movements and how to focus on the differences in similar words. Stay tuned next time because we will review Visual Memory!

Teacher Resources

School is back in session!

In a previous post, I have blogged about how our vision can affect our learning abilities. With school starting back up, our office is seeing children with common symptoms like skipping lines when reading, poor penmanship, and loss of focus. Who are the most likely to notice these symptoms? The teachers!

It's up to all of us to educate teachers about the benefits of Vision Therapy, which can help make those symptoms subside.

Every child that is in school and a patient here, we are in contact with their teachers. We want every teacher to be aware of the benefits of VT. But it can't stop there - parents we need your help!

Here are some ways to help:

• Print the following Vision Quiz and give to your child's teacher, have them fill out one for each of their students. Sounds time consuming, right? Yes, but how many children could we help if teachers were more educated about how vision affects learning? And for them to know there is a solution.

Take the Vision Quiz

A first step toward assessing if you, your child, your student has a vision problem. Write in number that best describes how often each symptom occurs:
0=Never, 1=Seldom, 2=Occasionally, 3=Frequently, 4=Always

 
A score of 20 or more points indicates the need for a comprehensive vision exam.

• Or email the teacher the COVD (College of Optometrist in Vision Development) Symptom Checklist. That way if the teacher notices any of the symptoms they can refer patient to get a comprehensive vision exam.
• Tell the teachers about your success with Vision Therapy.
• Meet with the principle at your child's school and tell them about the benefits of Vision Therapy and how you believe more children could benefit.
• Send your child's teachers to our blog: http://nashvillevisiontherapy.blogspot.com/
• Next time you are in our office ask for a stack of Vision Therapy pamphlets and pass to the teachers, guidance counselors, and/or principal.

I have had several parents email me asking me to send more information to teachers. Which I love to do, but it takes more that just me, we need you. Help us help others!

To the teachers that believe in Vision Therapy and the benefits, thank you! Thanks to your awareness and concern, children are getting the help they need.

Healthy Eyes

Let's talk about food! We have all heard "you are what you eat," right? That could not ring more true. What we put into our bodies truly affects us and how we function.

Today we are going to talk about some foods that keep our EYES healthy! We can do Vision Therapy exercises everyday to keep our eyes moving together...but how do we keep them healthy?

Here at our office, during an exam we like to educate our patients about nutrition for the eyes.  I hope this encourages you to start incorporating good eating habits into your families.

Let's start! There are many antioxidants and other nutrients that can reduce your risk of cataracts, macular degeneration, and alleviate symptoms of dry eye disease. Check out the following:

• Vitamin A is an antioxidant that is essential for proper functioning of the retina. It may protect against night blindness and dry eyes. Good sources for Vitamin A are beef or chicken liver, cod liver oil, eggs, milk, carrots, spinach, mangoes, papayas, peaches and apricots.
• Vitamin C may reduce the risk of cataracts and macular degeneration in addition to keeping your immune system in good shape. You can get your daily allowance of Vitamin C by eating not only oranges and other citrus fruits, but also from red or green sweet peppers, strawberries, kale and broccoli.
• Vitamin E has been associated with the prevention of cataracts and the delaying of cataract growth. When combined with carotenoids and Vitamin C it may reduce the risk of advanced macular degeneration. Food sources for Vitamin E are almonds, sunflower seeds, hazelnuts, and green leafy vegetables.
• Omega-3 fatty acids are a great defense against dry eyes and macular degeneration. The following foods have a great source of Omega-3: salmon, mackerel, herring, flax seed, fish oil or walnuts.

With the above foods, lets not fry, over cook or put tons of cheese on top. To get the better source of nutrients try to keep the vegetables or fruits closer to the raw state. Also there are great vitamin supplements with the above nutrients.  

Let's start eating better today! Try to incorporate these foods into you and your families lives.

Vision Therapy Resources

With the cool air coming into Nashville, it lets us know that summer has almost come to an end. Not only that but with the sight of school buses and crossing guards, we know school is back in session! I hope the start of school has been great.

 
Today's blog I would like to share some great resources: 

• On the COVD website they have a great resource center for parents. Check it out: Parent Resource Center.
• In previous blogs we blogged about; "Is there correlation between ADD/ADHD and vision problems?"  As you read, a lot of ADD symptoms go hand-in-hand with vision problems. Yes, Vision Therapy can rid ADD symptoms. Here is a great book to check out for more information: Without Ritalin: A Natural Approach to ADD. Berne, Samuel, O.D., FCOVD.
• A couple months ago I blogged about Pinterest. This one is for all the moms that love Pinterst, check out all the Vision Therapy things people are pinning: Vision Therapy Pins.
• Before we start investing our time on anything, what is the first thing you want to do before you start? We find out if it works or we look for reviews, right? Check out our success stories.
• For more great books, check this out: Book List. There are books titled "Helping Hyperactive Kids - A Sensory Integration Approach" to "How to Improve Your Child's Eyesight Naturally" to "The Mislabeled Child." Great resources parents!

There are so many great resources out there about Vision Therapy. Not only that but how to improve our child's life naturally. I hope you take advantage of some of these great resources. Until next week, I encourage you to do something new and creative with your child this week!

Sports Vision

The past couple of weeks, we have had exciting things happening in the sports world--and I'm not just talking about the Olympics! There are many perks that come with my job, and the best is seeing my patients excited about their success. Last week, after several weeks of vision therapy, one of my patients caught a pop fly and hit a home run. A couple weeks before that, one of the children in our therapy program caught a football turning into a touchdown. To see the excitement in their eyes as they were telling me makes what we do worth it.  It is so gratifying to see our patients succeed.

While we are talking about sports, did you know that Vision Therapy improves sports performance? Does your child always seem to be just a few steps away from the soccer ball?  Having trouble catching a baseball during a game? 

Vision, just like speed and strength, is an important component in how well you play your sport. There is much more to vision than just seeing clearly.  Your vision is comprised of many interrelated skills that can affect how well you play.  And, just as exercise and practice can increase your speed and strength, it can also improve your visual fitness and accuracy.

Because all sports have different visual demands, our doctors assess your unique visual system and recommend a vision therapy program to maximize your visual skills.

Sports Benefits include:

• Passing/shooting aim (depth perception and eye/hand coordination)
• Improved defensive and offensive awareness (peripheral vision)
• Enhanced reaction time (eye/hand coordination)
• Improved hitting in baseball (tracking and depth perception)
• Improved fielding (tracking and depth perception)

If you feel like Sports Vision Therapy could benefit you or your child please call us: 615-386-3036.