top of page

Visual Perception

Visual perception skills refer to the ability to interpret, analyze, and understand the visual information that a person receives from their environment. This includes the ability to identify and understand the relationships between objects and to use this information to guide behavior and decision-making. A person or child may have perfect 20/20 vision but still have difficulty processing what they have seen and how their body can interact with objects in their environment.


Visual perception skills are important for a variety of daily activities, including reading, writing, and navigating the environment. Children and adults with difficulties in visual perception may struggle with tasks that require visual analysis and attention to detail, and may benefit from intervention by an occupational therapist or other rehabilitation professional.

Complete our form now. It's easy, fast and secure.

boy with black reading glasses smiling and learning in the classroom

Different Types of Visual Perception Skills

  • Hand-Eye Coordination: The ability to coordinate movements based on what is seen by the eyes (i.e. drawing straight or curved lines within a visual boundary)

  • Visual Discrimination: Ability to differentiate and classify objects based on size, colour, shape, position etc.

  • Visual Sequential-Memory: Recalling a sequence of objects, shapes or symbols in the correct order

  • Visual Figure-Ground: The ability to see and differentiate an object in a busy or complex background

  • Visual Memory: Recalling an object's shape, movements, sequence, colour or symbols

  • Visual Spatial-Relations: Organising visual information to be aware of the body's position in space and how it interacts with different objects (i.e. walking through a doorway without bumping or moving in a crowded space)

  • Visual Closure: Recognising a shape or object even when part of the image is missing

  • Visual Form-Constancy: The ability to identify or sort objects, shapes, symbols, letters, and/or words, despite a difference in their position or size.


How Can Occupational Therapy Help?

Occupational therapy can help improve visual perception in several ways. Some of the interventions that an occupational therapist might use to help improve visual perception include:

  • Visual perceptual activities: An occupational therapist may use activities that challenge an individual’s visual perception skills, such as puzzles, matching games, and visual discrimination tasks.

  • Visual scanning exercises: Visual scanning exercises can help improve an individual’s ability to track and locate objects in their visual field.

  • Depth perception activities: Activities that help develop depth perception, such as throwing and catching a ball, can be used to improve visual perception.

  • Visual memory exercises: Visual memory exercises, such as matching games and memory recall activities, can help improve visual memory and perception.

  • Visual motor integration activities: Activities that involve integrating visual and motor skills, such as drawing and tracing, can help improve visual perception.

Overall, occupational therapy uses a variety of activities and exercises to help improve an individual’s visual perception skills to support their overall development.

bottom of page