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Ways to Improve Your Child's Visual Perception

A child who has weak visual perception may struggle to identify numbers, words or letters. He may also have a difficult time differentiating between objects and symbols. You can use games to help him improve visual acuity. It is important to understand that vision and visual perception are two different things. Vision is visual clarity and the eye's ability to focus on objects that are near and far. Visual perception is the ability to organize and integrate visual patterns.

  1. Board Games

    • Board games help develop visual perception by incorporating a variety of perceptual skills. Classic games such as Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land are good examples. These games have colorful boards and play pieces. By playing games such as these, children are required to focus on several objects at once. These games can help improve visual spatial relations, or the ability to identify distance between objects. Children have to place a small play pieces or cards into a specific box.

    Sports

    • Sports activities that involve throwing to a target in the distance, running, kicking and catching will help your child practice using his eyes and the rest of his body simultaneously. Sports help to improve visual tracking which is the ability to follow visually follow an object. If your child has a difficult time catching a ball, that could be an indication of weak visual perception or undeveloped motor skills.

    Cube Play

    • Playing with cubes will help your child improve visual perception, as well as spatial awareness and attention to detail. You can work with her to improve simple or complex designs using the blocks. You can also encourage in-hand manipulation skills by challenging her rotate blocks held in one hand or switching blocks from one hand to the other.

    The Memory Game

    • The card game Memory has been on the market for over 20 years. Children can improve visual perception, as well as memory, by playing. The object of the game is to remember where matching cards are placed, face down. Some cards that at first glance may appear to be the same actually have entirely different images. By playing the game, children get an opportunity to build object differentiation skills, which will ultimately improve visual perception.

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