What does visual perception mean?

Developing vision – in the first year of life: When babies are born, their vision is still very blurry and they can, for example, barely distinguish colors. Over the course of the first year of life their vision develops until the eyes finally function just like an adult's. Beyond this purely physical development, babies and toddlers also have to learn to recognize certain details or differences in what they see, e.g.

• Shapes

• Colors

• Sizes

• Distances

• Structures/Patterns

• Movements

Differentiating and Interpreting – mainly between the 3rd and 7th year of life: The process of differentiating between these details is called visual perception. It is a necessary prerequisite so that we can interpret what we see. If, for example, the visual perception of shapes or structures did not work, children would have great difficulty learning to read and write when starting school. But spatial awareness can also suffer if visual perception is disturbed. As a result, children have difficulty relating to their surroundings and are very insecure in their movements.

Visual perception disorder: If you suspect that your child's visual perception is not age-appropriately developed, you should first talk to your pediatrician and, if necessary, seek help from an occupational therapist. Targeted support should begin as early as possible so that there are no problems at school.

Great for visual perception:

Classic games from our childhood

Many games and toys that particularly effectively promote children's visual perception are for the most part real classics. So you don't have to buy special games or learn new ones to support your child – many things are probably already in the child's room:

Puzzles: Bringing the differently shaped pieces together to gradually create a picture is not only a great feeling of achievement, it also trains the perception of different colors and shapes, pay attention to age-appropriate puzzles to avoid frustration.

Duplo and Lego: The colorful little bricks are now available in an overwhelming variety. That is precisely what makes them so valuable for the development of visual perception: big and small, square, elongated or semi-circular, in many colors and always combinable in different ways - Duplo and Lego bricks never get boring.

Memory: Many children understand the principle of Memory from about three years of age and play it with great enthusiasm. The motifs on the cards combine colors and shapes; memorizing and recognition effectively train visual perception. As a nice side effect it's a group game that's even more fun with three or four people.

Playdough: Not all parents appreciate playdough because it too often ends up in the carpet or dries out on the craft table. However, playdough is also wonderfully suited to convey different shapes and size relationships to your child. Designing certain figures yourself is for many children a challenge with great learning benefits.

Preschool workbooks: Preschool workbooks, which can be bought for example at the stationery store, offer various playful exercises for visual perception, for example mazes through which the correct path must be drawn or tasks in which missing or extra objects must be found.

Alternatives for everyday life

Even in everyday life you can casually promote your child's visual perception.

• Take time: 15 to 30 minutes of playing together daily is already enough – take this time to consciously play a round with your child.

• "I spy": On train or car journeys, the game is popular in which objects of a certain color must be found.

• After eating you can slip in a round of "What's missing?": Your child must close their eyes and you remove an item from the table, e.g. the drinking cup. Your child may open their eyes and must guess what is missing.

• Nature in order: While walking you can collect various items such as stones, sticks, leaves and sort them together – by colors, shape or size, for older children also by brightness or texture.