What is Visual Motor Integration?!
Visual motor integration is the ability to incorporate the visual information we perceive with our motor skills to execute movements of our body. Visual motor skills are embodied within visual motor integration. They are essential to produce efficient and coordinated movements to complete our daily activities. The skills allow us to coordinate our hands, feet, and body with what we see in our environment.
There are two components of visual motor integration: visual skills and motor skills. Each has to be well established to function properly and then they both have to work together efficiently and effectively. The visual skills include proper functioning of the basic visual skills and visual perceptual skills while the motor skills include gross and fine motor movements along with strength and stability.
Visual motor integration is important for a variety of skills needed for daily functioning:
Bilateral coordination
Body awareness
Eye-hand & Eye-foot coordination
Copying visual information
Reading
Handwriting
Sports
Speed of motor tasks
Activities of daily living (feeding, grooming, dressing, ect.)
There are 3 areas involved:
Eye-hand Coordination: Using visual information effectively and efficiently with our hands to manipulate objects. Requires fine motor dexterity, strength, shoulder stability, and core stability.
Visual Processing Skills: Skills used to gather information with our eyes for our brain to process. This includes visual tracking, convergence, saccades (both eyes moving together), visual fixation, and visual attention.
Visual Perceptual Skills: Giving meaning to the things we see. This includes visual discrimination, visual memory, spatial relations, visual closure, visual attention, form constancy, visual sequential memory, and visual figure ground.
If you haven’t read our blog about the visual system and visual perceptual skills, we encourage you to do so to understand all the functions of being able to see and interpret our environment. Also, learning the difference between them.
The above signs and strategies are only a few to detect and help with visual motor integration challenges. However, if you are unsure or suspect your child may have difficulty with visual motor integration, we recommend seeking occupational therapy or vision therapy services for proper support and treatment to improve your child’s daily functioning. Treatment, such as eye exercises, can help retrain the eyes and brain to work together!
If you have any questions, concerns, or would like more information, please reach out. We are here to support you!
Photos:
Top: https://www.sheknows.com/parenting/articles/1107555/age-appropriate-sports-for-kids/
String: https://azopt.net/visual-motor-integration/
Catch: https://fatherseve.com/2018/07/father-son-activities-that-will-build-a-bond-for-life/