Visual Motor Skills
in Baton Rouge, LA
Visual motor skills are a vital part of a child’s growth and development, even though most people don’t realize it. These skills make it possible for your child to write, play games, and even find their favorite toy in a messy room. But some children struggle with their visual motor skills and need extra support from pediatric occupational therapists to achieve their developmental milestones. Keep reading to learn more about visual motor skills, how they can affect your child’s daily life, and how our team at Dynamic Therapy Specialists can help make a difference.
What Are Visual Motor Skills?
Visual motor skills refer to the ability to coordinate what they see with how they move their body. These skills are what allow children to do activities that require hand-eye coordination and spatial awareness such as writing or catching a ball.
The Types of Visual Motor Skills
Visual motor skills can be categorized into three main types:
- Visual Processing Skills–These involve receiving and interpreting visual information, such as recognizing shapes, letters, and colors. This is vital for tracking moving objects or focusing on the words on a page.
- Visual Perceptual Skills–These involve making sense of visual information so that you can take action, such as understanding spatial relationships to avoid bumping into furniture. This is necessary for many areas of learning and handling daily tasks.
- Hand-Eye Coordination–This is the ability to coordinate what you have seen and understood with hand movements. It’s vital for tasks like handwriting, drawing, and catching or throwing objects accurately.
Signs and Symptoms of Visual Motor Skill Delays
The common signs or symptoms of a visual motor skill delay include:
- Difficulty with handwriting, drawing, or coloring within lines
- Poor spatial awareness on paper or in navigating the environment
- Challenges with catching or throwing objects accurately
- Struggles with tasks like buttoning clothes or using utensils
- Trouble focusing in busy areas like a shopping mall or cafeteria
- Difficulty recognizing differences and similarities in letters, words, or shapes
- Frequent accidents or clumsiness
- Challenges completing simple or age-appropriate puzzles
- Struggles with copying letters, words, or shapes
- Trouble writing letters or numbers the correct way, such as writing R backwards
How We Address Visual Motor Skill Delays
At Dynamic Therapy Specialists, we take a holistic approach to pediatric therapy. Rather than simply teaching children how to compensate for the skills they struggle with, we take a bottom-up approach by focusing on remediation first. By evaluating the foundational areas of your child’s development, we can identify and address the root causes of their visual motor skill delay.
Think of it this way: you have to learn to walk before you can learn to run. It’s not that you can’t learn how to run, but if you never learned how to walk first, you’ll be missing the basics that you need to support learning how to run. By prioritizing skill remediation over compensation, we empower children to build a strong foundation for future growth and development.
Schedule an Evaluation Today
If your child is struggling with their visual motor skills, our team at Dynamic Therapy Specialists will go above and beyond to help. Call us at (225) 767-5032 to schedule an evaluation, and let’s work together to improve your child’s quality of life.