My Child Can See But Cannot Write Nor Read

In order to see clearly and process what we can see (to read or write), we need to have visual information processing skills. Good vision means we have a good set of eyes that can see clearly. Good visual information processing skill means being able to accurately and quickly interpret what we see. For example, when our children write or read in the classroom, it is important for them to quickly decode, understand, and remember the written material they are reading as well as being able to process what the teachers say.

Visual information processing can be divided into 3 basic areas:

1. Visual Spatial Skills; is an understanding the relation of the world to us. Children with poor visual-spatial skills have difficulty understanding left to right, poor eye movement skills (can be perceived as clumsy), and difficulty understanding space and time.

2. Visual Analysis Skills; is an ability to recognise and manipulate visual information. These sets of skills include the child’s ability to memorise and recall words, forms, and numbers, difficulty spelling as well as focussing on certain visual tasks that required visual memory.

3. Visual Motor Skills; often called hand-eye coordination. Visual motor issues can lead to poor motor skills such as catching a ball, difficulty copying sentences, tie shoelaces, cutting and drawing.

In general, we would like to effectively target their visual information processing problems to help the child learn. Difficult with fine motor integration affects a child’s writing, organization on paper, and ability to transition between a worksheet or keyboard and other necessary information which is in a book, on a number line, graph, chart, or computer screen.

What therapy is best for my child to help them learn (if they have visual information processing problems)?

There are no two children that are the same, effective interventions include using the child’s best strength to build the other areas of development that need improvement. Age is another factor that need to be considered; for example a young child who has not started school; a fun tasks such as threading beads can be included and more time can be spent doing therapies compared to one who is at school 5 days a week.

A visual information processing is generally conducted by a paedriatic or behavioural optometrists and should be conducted to children with no problems seeing things but have learning difficulties at school (or have problems concentrating at school).