Poor Visual Memory

[Heathermomster]

Howdy Hive,

 

I was speaking with a mother recently that told me her children have poor visual memory, which makes spelling and handwriting difficult. She ask me how I work with my dysgraphic son. Our children's needs are entirely different. I suggested she speak with an OT or get a neuro report done. I gave her the name of my son's tester.

 

Now I'm curious, what is the usual remediation for poor visual memory? How do you approach teaching? Is everything more hands on?

 

Thank-you,

Heather

[wapiti]

Somewhere here there's a post on this, though I'm not sure where. One of the exercises my dd did in VT for visual memory was a game involving shapes and patterns (your partner arranges foam shapes in a pattern behind a screen, and you have so many seconds to watch, the screen is lowered, and then you have to reproduce the pattern yourself with your set of shapes).

 

FWIW, in our house, visual memory has not caused problems for handwriting. My two who have visual memory issues also have neat handwriting, though the speed is slow and their hands hurt ;)

[LaughingCat]

Here's a quote of my own post from the current memory thread - the part that relates to visual memory:

visual - have them look at a picture and recreate it without looking again(often done with pictures that are just lines). Merry Gardens suggested (in another thread): "We play Castle Logic by taking a short look at the picture, but we don't refer to it when building the structure." I've done some work with DD with dolch sight phrase flash cards - where I hold it up only for a second or two, and then she has to tell me what it said.

 

games: dragon tales/chicken cha cha cha, gobblet jr, rat-a-tat-cat, sole mio, sherlock, the secret door

 

cogmed game: http://www.spaceminespatrol.com/gamepage.html

 

I forgot to include the idea wapiti mentions - our VT did that too.

 

My DD is like Wapiti says though - poor visual memory, but neat handwriting as long as she takes her time. VT did help her handwriting but more along the "stay on the line and have correct spacing" lines, which I would attribute more to other visual improvement like tracking and near/far (for copying).

 

For spelling we use Apples & Pears and it seems to be working so far (we're going relatively slowly though - between 1-2 lessons/week ).

[merry gardens]

Howdy Hive,

 

I was speaking with a mother recently that told me her children have poor visual memory, which makes spelling and handwriting difficult. She ask me how I work with my dysgraphic son. Our children's needs are entirely different. I suggested she speak with an OT or get a neuro report done. I gave her the name of my son's tester.

 

Now I'm curious, what is the usual remediation for poor visual memory? How do you approach teaching? Is everything more hands on?

 

Thank-you,

Heather

There are ways to teach someone with a poor visual memory that attempt to bypass visual memory. Those methods can work if other sources of memory, (like auditory and kinestetic memory), are strong enough to compensate. Sometimes when a child has a poor visual memory, he may have a poor memory in general or something else going on too.

 

For spelling, there's a program by LMB called Seeing Stars that works on deveoping visual memory for words. Apart from spelling, there are several activities to improve visual memory, often games. (I found several when I went to a highly selective, quality toy store and told one of the workers that I wanted games for visual memory.)

 

If your friend's children spell poorly and have handwriting issues, they may have a poor visual memory, but they may have other things going on too. Handwring doesn't just depend on visual memory--it involves kinestetic memory, and hand muscles and several other things too. Spelling isn't only about visual memory--both kinestetic and auditory memory can/should help compensate when there's poor visual memory. I think you were wise to give the mom information about where to go for further evaluation.

[PeterPan]

When someone says "my kid has poor visual memory," that's a really loaded thing and something you have to sit down and parse. You have to take what they're describing with the terms they have and develop a mental picture of it so you can understand what they mean. When she says "My kid has poor visual memory," it might be she means "When my kid tries to do copywork, he gets flustered and forgets what he was writing." It could mean anything. And what she's describing could therefore be a LOT of things. It could be things she's not even thinking about like attention, working memory, etc.

 

Absolutely think it's wise to get a diagnosis if you think your kid has these issues, good call there! The only thing I would have added was a vision eval. It's such a basic thing (get your eyes checked, you said his vision wasn't working right), but somehow people don't think of it. Or they go to a regular optometrist that gives their kid an ok even though there are things going on, grrr. So, people can disagree, but I think a vision exam, just the normal, $60-100 exam, with a *developmental optometrist* is about the best $60 you can spend. That's less than many curricula, and it can save you from shooting in the dark. If they DON'T have the vision problems, well then it was just one of those good things to have done, sort of like going to the dentist when you turn out not to have cavities. You still go. ;)

 

OT would be if there are indications of pain, sensory problems, etc. You didn't includ that in your quote, so she may have said more that tipped you off to that need.

 

People are all at different places in this. Some people never get evals. They just figure it is what it is, or sometimes they (or the spouse) lived with it and got over it. Sometimes that pans out, sometimes it doesn't. But it's nice when people know their options so they can make that decision for themselves. Good friend! :)