Visual memory and spelling

What creates the speed is paying attention to the information that is presented, in addition, practice and repetition creates the memory. The old adage, practice makes perfect applies here. One could have information flashed in front of them until the cows come home but if they aren’t focused on the information that is presented they will not store it in their visual or auditory memory for recall later.

Something else that occurred to me in regards to the important role that visual memory and attention play together occurs when people on occassion misplace things like keys or a cell phone. They don’t remember where they put the keys because they weren’t paying attention to what they were doing when they misplaced them. What they do is retrace their steps until they figure out where they put them.

Yes Yes Yes!

Attention does seem to play a role. I am always telling my son to focus. There are times when he is tired and he doesn’t do as well. He can’t pay attention as well when he is tired.

I do sometimes think that the vision therapy exercises we do help with attention just because he has to practice the *skill* of paying attention and this practice stimulates the attention centers of the brain. My son’s oveall attention has definitely improved. The best indicator of this is;

Number of times to the lost and found last year = 20
Number of times to the lost and found this year = 0

I have definitely gotten better at remembering where things are by learning to first focus on making a mental picture of where I am placing something. I can’t make that picture if my mind is in never never land.

Its a running family joke that the Y-chromosome side of our family can’t find anything and the X’s can.

I’ve been working with my son on this idea of retracing your steps to find things. It forces him to flex that visual memory muscle which is weak, and also teaches him a process for finding things that he can use in the future.

One thing I don’t understand about visual memory is how he could have excellent reading comprehension without it. Are there other skills that he could be using to compensate?

Although I can’t say my son has excellent reading comprehension (compared to his sister there’s a large difference, but she can almost retell a book word for word! So I’m not sure what’s typical), I think his comprehension is surprisingly good for the level he reads at.

I have spent a great deal of time over the years reading books “above level,” stopping to explain vocabulary or ask questions to make sure he was paying attention and understanding. I think forcing him to pay attention and asking him questions like this did help him develop better comprehension skills. I know when he was younger he did seem to get quite lost.

I’m wondering if the problem with visual memory may be one where some kids do have it and can use it, but the problem goes back to automaticity and using visualizing skills effortlessly. Right now we’re working on a visualizing/memorizing the presidents exercise through the OT. My son seems to be having a fairly easy time doing this and he is enjoying it. In addition to visualizing there’s a game quality about the whole thing which my son really likes.

One interesting thing a local mom mentioned is a connection she had heard about. Something about strong auditory processing skills and the autism spectrum (?). I haven’t personally seen anything about this, but she said she had heard about some type of connection.

One more quirky visual memory thing…. My son played Sequence with his grandmother this weekend and she noticed that he had great difficulty telling the clubs and spades apart. Even when he “knew” them he’d mix them up. That seemed odd because I know I’ve taught him this before, although it has been awhile since we played cards.

Well I know that kids with NonVerbal Learning disabilities (NVLD) which some say is on the autistic spectrum in that its related to Aspergers, are characterized by strong auditory memory.

My son has some NVLD tendencies - strong auditory memory, excellent verbal skills, high verbal IQ, lower performance IQ, and some social difficulties. He also has a real problem with eye contact, and the word aspergers has come up. BUT, once a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist gets past an initial consultation the picture changes dramatically and noone thinks these are appropriate diagnosis for him. His issues are just not severe enough in those areas, and he doesn’t have some of the other qualities. So I think like so many of these things that the autistic spectrum is really just part of the human spectrum, but more severe. My son has some traits. It makes sense that someone with relatively stronger auditory skills than visual might misread social cues because they are much more comfortable listening than looking.

The lindamood bell folks maintain that visualizing for comprehension and visualizing symbols are different areas of the brain. That is why they have seeing stars for symbols and visualizing and verbalizing for comprehension.

Yep, our kids are identical. My son’s ability to visualize concepts has always been extremely good. He had a very hard time visualizing letters and numbers.
I personally believe visualizing symbols takes good input and if the eyes have focusing and tracking issues that don’t have good input. I think this is less important for comprehension. You make the pictures of the story in you imagination. It is more a creative process.

Some people call this ability to see in pictures dyslexia but I see dyslexia as different for different people.

Thanks Linda, that makes perfect sense. I wish I had come around to vision therapy sooner - because it seems like it should yield some big benefits.

We purchased some “Home Vision Therapy” software from our DO. I asked about Visionbuilder, and although they had heard of it it wasn’t the software they suggested. He’s been doing 20 minutes on the days he’s not doing therapy. It seems like mini therapy - convergence, tracking etc on the computer. No reading - which has me wondering if visionbuilder might still be appropriate. We have to switch DO practices in august so I’m going to wait and see how they approach it.

Laura,

The president’s exercise is from PACE. It really is a visualization exercise, which as Linda says, is different than visual sequential memory. Your son’s difficulty with the card game makes me wonder about visual perceptual skills—specifically visual discrimination. My son’s visual discrimination skills improved with PACE. One game I have which PACE uses is SET. You can get it in any upscale children’s store as well as on line. I have never played it as a game with my son but rather taking turns—you find a set, I find a set. It requires visual perceptual skills and logic.

Beth

FYI- you can play SET over the internet at:

http://www.reed.edu/~mcphailb/applets/set/

We also got a simpler version (one color) from the net that I downloaded.

My son can play SET without any problem- but visual/spatial perception is his strongest skill. I acctually like this game a lot myself…

After OD evaluation I finally got some clues as to where his problem is:

He is suppressing one eye when reading - I still did not get a full report, but I recently read that when the dominant eye is left eye- this eye prefers to scan right to left- hence opposite to the English language convention- left to right. This makes a person to be prone for reading problems- this is exactly my son profile.

We started VT- I keep my fingers crossed it will yield some results since my son is already asking for “real vacations”- namely no therapies…

We went back for IM- after exactly 10 months he scored precisely where he was 10 months ago- I hope 8 sessions will bring him down to below 30 ms…

[color=olive]Goodness yes, the visual processing for symbols is different than the one for comprehension. I process symbols instantly and have to work (whether in reading or life) on comprehending visual input or translating from abstract to concrete. Which makes me think — instead of just having “the place to put your keys” — it might stick better if the word “keys” was there, stupid as that might sound. I’ll let you know ;)
Case in point: The other week when a rather fast-moving car was careering towards our little group of cyclists on the side of the road, my buddy was hauling herself off the road (and almost made it — the car took off her back bicycle wheel) ) while I was duly noting the license number. (After taking out a mailbox on the other side of the street the driver stopped, no lasting damage to anyone except her insurance rates)[/color].
Interestingly, last week a pickup driver turning left failed to see me … this time I “comprehended” and dodged successfully. (He also stopped, apologizing profusely — I think he musta had kids) (And in 10 years and 20,000 miles on the bike, those are the only two incidences like that. )[color=green][/color]

Beth,
My son scored well in visual discrimination. I’m still somewhat perplexed about his vision because he has some great visual strengths. My guess is that any visual difficulties he has are due to tracking and focusing problems. Yet, so far everything has been so easy for him. He seems to have the wall chart exercises (like the Hart chart and we have another that uses a bull’s eye) down cold).

I suppose I just need to give this all time to really know if it’s helping or not. He did really well with the Presidents exercise. I just wish this all was easier — like I could give him a pill and he’d be able to read. :-(

A pill for reading!! Boy, do I know how you feel!!

I wonder how your son scores well on visual discrimination but mixes up cards. Your son and mine should get together with their puzzle profiles!! I still would try the game Set—it is fun and might help get at whatever is going on with him.

Dale Seymour also has cards called Visual Thinking that PACE incorporates—maybe they would help too. Or maybe he is already good at all those things—and it is just tracking. These cards require lots of fine grained comparisons.

My son is pretty terrible at nonverbal logic. As I have worked with him, he has improved a lot with verbal logic, nonverbal seems tougher for him. You should have seen him trying the puzzle Linda F. posted with the circle and squares. He couldn’t begin to figure it out. Now, I am not sure this is at all related to reading—probably not—but it does impact math.

My son wasn’t as good as yours at the president exercise.

Beth