Visual Motor Skills

What are visual motor skills?

Visual motor skills require your child’s visual perception, hand-eye coordination, and motor control to work in harmony. These skills allow your child to make sense of images and turn that understanding into accurate motor action.

They start developing these abilities at birth and refine them throughout life by practicing activities appropriate for their development. These may include:

• Scribbling
• Building with blocks
• Tracing
• Using scissors
• Writing
• Catching a ball
• Drawing

Visual perceptual skills include:

• Visual memory — remembering visual information
• Visual discrimination — matching two similar objects
• Visual closure — identifying two objects that are similar, even if part of one is missing
• Form constancy — noticing two objects are the same, even if they differ in colors, size, etc.
• Figure-ground — the ability to find an object, even if it’s hidden in a busy background (e.g., locating Waldo in a “Where’s Waldo” drawing)

If your child needs help with their visual motor skills, contact A Grade Therapy for an evaluation.

How can I tell if my child needs help with visual motor skills?

Because visual motor skills enable us to coordinate our hands and eyes to draw and write, children struggling with these skills may get frustrated with handwriting, copying shapes, lining up math problems, or other activities that arise at school or when they’re playing.

Talk to a licensed professional if you notice your child:

• Has poor hand-eye coordination or clumsiness
• Struggles to recall the order of visual information
• Forgets sequential instructions
• Has poor spatial awareness
• Has limited ability to concentrate or pay attention
• Can’t stay within the lines when coloring
• Has difficulty understanding where objects are around them
• Is frequently frustrated by homework
• Can’t focus in busy environments
• Struggles to remember objects, symbols, or shapes they’ve seen

Everyone has different capabilities, but regardless of where your child starts, A Grade Therapy aims to improve their quality of life and confidence.

How can better visual motor skills improve my child’s life?

As A Grade Therapy works with your child, you may notice their confidence increasing. Being able to read better lets them engage more intelligently with the world around them, and better handwriting enables them to share their thoughts and feelings with others.

To learn more about visual motor skills development, call A Grade Therapy to schedule your in-home or virtual appointment today.