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visual perceptual heartpuzzle

Barbara's Perceptual Game

Did you ever think that hearts could look be so varied?
And these don't even include the chocolate hearts we eat!

Most people can easily recognize these hearts even though they differ in
color, size, orientation, are distorted, overlapping or broken up into pieces
or sections. However, individuals who have perceptual difficulties may not
recognize that these are indeed all hearts.

Children who demonstrate perceptual difficulties may have difficulty with
puzzles, discriminating different shapes and learning how to read and write.
Adults who have developmental disabilities, experienced brain injury, a stroke,
develop dementia or other conditions which impact brain function may also
demonstrate visual perceptual difficulties. Some of the specific visual perceptual
skills which occupational therapists evaluate are as follows:

Position in Space- is the ability to recognize which direction a shape is
facing and which shapes are facing the same direction. For example, which of
these letters are facing in the same direction as this b ?

d d b d b d

Children who have difficulty with "position in space" discrimination may have
frequent letter reversals when reading and writing. These hearts are approximately
facing in the same position in space.

Form Constancy discrimination involves recognizing that a shape is the same
even if it is bigger, smaller, darker, lighter, colored in, an outline or rotated to have
a different orientation. Children need to recognize that shapes and letters are the
same in different situations. Many of the hearts above differ in several attributes,
yet we still recognize them as hearts. These are all the same hearts regardless
of size or orientation.

Visual Closure discrimination involves recognizing that something is the
same even if part is hidden or incomplete. This enables us to read someone's
handwriting even if the t's are not crossed. "Visual closure" discrimination is
important while doing jig saw puzzles and you can probably visualize the end
result even before all the pieces are put in place.You probably know what
shapes these are even though the lines and pictures are incomplete.

Figure ground discrimination helps us to discriminate the important details
such as finding the toddler on the crowded beach. Children who have difficulty
in"figure ground" discrimination may have difficulty finding a school supply
inside a messy desk or a specific math problem on a busy page. These hearts
have distracting backgrounds that make them a bit trickier to perceive.

Visual Memory How many of the hearts up above can you describe without
scrolling back up? Visual memory is a factor when children are required to learn
new skills such as spelling words.

These special hearts are presented with permission from
photographer Kristin Mallery http://heartshappen.com

kristinshearts

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