visual memory

Depends on the kiddo, his/her other strengths and weaknesses, and the academic demands (what grade?).

Basically, anything that woudl require visual memory would be more difficult. So, think of different academic tasks. THink of how visual information would be important.

For example, A lousy visual memory would really be a challenge in a bio course where you had to identify plants, animals, microbes, etc.

Some other repercussions:

math: attending to the sign, keeping track of where you are in multistep problems

writing: spelling, punctuation, organization of writing

social studies: map reading/graph reading and interpretation

According to brain research (source: Kathie Nunley) this problem is best remediated before age 9, for between 9 and 12 the brain becomes less flexible in terms of shunting tasks done inefficiently in one area to another. In other words the brain gets more specialized and less “plastic”. Doesn’t mean the weak area can’t be improved but it takes a lot of work.

Jan L.

At a more basic level, it interferes with the child gaining automatic word recognition skills. That’ll equal poor fluency.

Janis

Being able to copy accurately from a chalkboard comes to mind.

Nancy

That doesn’t even have to be a visual issue that would show up in other settings; that “far point to near point” transition can be tough for kiddos with otehrwise good visual processing.

You have all described my kid in the classroom to a T. We didnt realize he has poor visual memory until recently (during VT evaluation and subsequent therapy) but wow, those are his issues all right.

He also has a messy desk and “loses” things around the house . He also doesn’t’ seem to recognize new faces until he’s seen them a few times. Creates some mild social problems.

My son has a hard time with some of the tasks you guys describe as being related to poor visual memory but not others. He still has a hard time copying accurately but not as much as he used to. And he is terrible with punctuation and capitalizing.

Yet, he is very good with maps and graphs. Does this make sense?

Beth

It makes sense to me that he probably has other compensatory skills. My son always blew us away with his memory in general as a toddler. Specifically he was interested in , and remembered, patterns of things he saw. So maybe a certain type of visual input tickles other parts of the brain…

So what can we do to improve visual memory? He’s graduated from VT, and I’m not interested in a heavy therapeutic or academic approach. Just wondering what *normal* games and activities might improve visual memory.

to Karen N.: it depends upon what “output system” you want to use to diemonstrate visual memory; if it’s the verbal response or just social interaction try card games, anything from “Magic”(which my LD son mastered thru motivation to keep up with peers), to regular card games where you need to remember your own cards and that of others. The written resonse is much harder-I am convinced that my son will never spell even moderately well-he types everything for school except worksheets and tests and most teachers ignore spelling unless it’s a vocabulary test. Poor spelling by itself is quite common…and very very hard to “fix”. He has learned to copy and draw maps in social studies because it’s a big part of the curriculum; they are not the neatest, but this is an area in which there is a huge gender difference in middle school(girls spend hours on them and boys don’t). Practice, practice practice for copying from the board…in our system copying your homework from the board starts at 3rd grade and that practice paid off for my son.

Karen,

One game I have that you might like is the I Spy memory game. It has really nice pictures and they are not exactly alike. This requires that you remember main feature—a hammar, a sea horse, a phone. I like this game because the of the quality of the pictures. Don’t know why it matters to me but I could never stand the standard Scobby doo or Barney memory game.

Beth

Visual memory is a little weird. I’m very good at reading maps and graphs — possibly ‘cause if you can’t just remember that spatial stuff on visual terms — it doesn’t like to stick to that Teflon part of the brain — you have to *read* them to make sense of them. (When I get directions to a place I memorize them… but the verbal directions, not the map…. because I’m going to lose them. Can’t remember where I put them — visual memory…)
If I remember right (yea ;-) ) I tested as having “average” visual memory — but *really* lousy organizing (surprise!) of information and memory for lists. Random strings — better than the average bear; but I would tend to apply the same strategy to lists of related things, when it didn’t really fit the task and there was a much better strategy, if I only knew to use it…. and tha’ts probably because the “better than the average bear” part worked at first. Kinda like when a strong visual learner uses that instead of sounds to learn words, at first… but then can’t hold his own when it gets harder.
Simply playing games with putting 6 things on a tray and showing them for 20 seconds and seeing how many are remembered is something that could help, especially if you discuss different strategies (“take a mental snapshot” “group the things — three and three”).
But… I’m absolutely confident I’d still make a *lousy& eyewitness :-) You were wearing a shirt?

Stare (game) is good. Also Visual Perceptual Skill Building, Book 2 from www.criticalthinking.com contains visual memory activities.