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visual motor integration-below average

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aspergersrus · 20/01/2011 20:47

My son has a DX of AS and has recently been assessed by a brilliant ( I have to say because she is!) OT. She has highlighted the VMI problem. My question is this...what does that mean for my son in the school environment. I will ask her when I next speak but wanted to start getting my head around it and can't find much info on the web. Just wondered if anyone had any personal experience? Thanks

OP posts:
moosemama · 20/01/2011 21:29

Hi, I'm just trying to get my head around this one myself. My ds1 - who's 8 and has a dx of Aspergers, was also found to have poor visual motor integration recently.

The first time it was an optician who noted he had poor binocular control, despite having better than 20/20 vision. She said this was down to poor muscular control of his eyes and suggested there may be more problems there.

He also did a WISC IV iq test recently and scored poorly on all the visual-motor related subtests, despite scoring very highly on most of the others.

We are in the process of getting him seen by a behavioural optometrist (Association of Behavioural Optometrists - BABO - website here) who should be able to do a full assessment and either arrange some exercises for him to do and/or ascertain whether or not he needs coloured lenses or overlays.

The two WISC subtest scores that were brought down by his visual-motor problems were perceptual reasoning (he scored very highly on the other subtests in this group but poorly on the VM element) and processing speed.

I found this article which suggests a strong link between poor visual motor skills and the ability to 'read' other people - thereby having a direct effect on social skills.

Another site I found suggested its linked to poor handwriting and other fine motor problems such as needle threading, drawing, painting, and using scissors etc.

There's a .pdf document here which is a study of poor visual motor skills in LD children. It explains a bit about the implications and also the benefits of occupational therapy.

Hope that helps a bit. Smile

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