Special Education Resources

Areas of Perception That Affect Learning

By: Bonnie Terry, M. Ed., Educational Therapist, Learning Disabilities Specialist

There are many components to learning. From the learning styles model designed by Dr. Rita Dunn and Dr. Kenneth Dunn there are five sets of stimuli: environmental, emotional, sociological, physical, and psychological. Within those stimuli there are 21 different elements involved that are either simultaneous or successive in the processing of information. One of the 21 elements addressed by them is within the physical stimulus. It is the perceptual area.

Within the area of perception there are three main subgroups: visual, auditory, and tactile (kinesthetic). The visual and auditory areas each have subgroups within them. There are nine areas of vision perception and nine of auditory perception that affect learning.

Areas of Vision Perception

Vision Perception is the ability to identify, organize, and interpret sensory data received by an individual through the eyes.

1. Visual Motor: The ability to relate visual stimuli to motor responses in an appropriate way.

2. Visual Figure Ground: The ability to visually attend to the designated stimulus and not be distracted by the background.

3. Visual Discrimination: The ability to discern similarities and differences visually.

4. Visual Memory: The ability to store and retrieve information that has been given with a visual stimulus.

5. Visual Closure: The ability to identify a visual stimulus from an incomplete visual presentation.

6. Visual Tracking: The ability to track one's eyes from left to right in an efficient manner; it enables the task to be completed quickly.

7. Visual Integration: The ability to integrate the above areas of the vision system together to gain meaning from visual stimulus.

8. Visual Language Association: The ability to formulate associations between pictures of objects (A picture of a girl: Would she go with a picture of a bird, moon, dress, or flag?).

9. Visual Language Classification: The ability to classify pictures by category (A picture of a girl: Would she go with a woman, fan, boat, or lamp?).

Areas of Auditory Perception

Auditory Perception is the ability to identify, organize, and interpret sensory data received by an individual through hearing.

1. Auditory Discrimination: The ability to discriminate between words that are similar or different in the way they sound.

2. Auditory Closure: The ability to combine sounds that are presented orally to make words.

3. Auditory Memory: The ability to remember accurately an auditory stimulus.

4. Auditory Visual Integration: The ability to accurately relate an auditory sound with a visual symbol.

5. Auditory Figure Ground: The ability to auditorially attend to the designated stimulus and not be distracted by the background.

6. Auditory Integration: The ability to integrate the above areas of the auditory system together to gain meaning from auditory stimulus.

7. Auditory Language Association: The ability to associate objects with each other that are presented orally (Would pencil go with wall or paper?).

8. Auditory Language Classification: The ability to classify objects by category when presented with them orally (Would boy go with dress or man?).

9. Auditory Visual Coordination: The ability to use hearing and seeing at the same time.

Most of these areas of auditory and visual perception are learned skills, so they can be improved. If a student has difficulty in any of the above areas, the difficulty can interfere with learning.

Visual Processing difficulties can lead to the following areas of difficulties in school:

Visual Motor difficulties can lead to poor handwriting and copying skills and poor memory of what was written, due to the extreme effort needed to get the information written down to begin with.

Visual Figure Ground difficulties can lead to difficulty finding specific items, either words or pictures, on a page.

Visual Discrimination difficulties can lead to difficulty discriminating whether similar words are the same or not, as well as whether letters within a word are the same.

Visual Memory difficulties can lead to difficulty remembering whether a student has read the word before. For instance, if you have a new word on the middle of page one and have the same new word either later on the same page or on a subsequent page, you have to sound it out again because you can't remember what the word was from before.

Visual Closure difficulties can lead to difficulties with fill-in-the-blank answers, such as completing words b_d.

Visual Tracking difficulties can lead to difficulties with omitting, substituting, and repeating words when reading from left to right. The meaning of the selection can be lost when this occurs. For instance if you read The girl can go to the store. You are asked questions about why couldn't the girl go to the store; the question doesn't make sense to you. The selection actually said The girl can't go to the store. The whole meaning has been changed just by omitting the ‘t in the word can't.

Visual Integration difficulties can lead to a decreased ability to get information from what is seen, leading to poor comprehension and understanding with reading and difficulty following instructions.

Visual Language Association and Classification difficulties can lead to difficulties with answering questions, making connections, that call for inferences just made with visual information.

Auditory Processing difficulties can lead to the following areas of difficulties in school:

Auditory Discrimination difficulties can lead to difficulties acquiring, understanding, and using spoken language.

Auditory Closure difficulties can lead to difficulties sounding out words, discriminating between sounds, attending to auditory stimuli, and filling in the gaps when they miss parts of words or conversations.

Auditory Memory difficulties can lead to difficulties retaining or recalling auditory experiences or directions. Some find it hard to recognize auditory stimuli they have heard before; others remember hearing the stimuli, but cannot reproduce it accurately.

Auditory Visual Integration difficulties can lead to difficulties primarily with spelling, putting the correct letter with the sound.

Auditory Figure Ground difficulties can lead to problems with instruction that is only auditory because they may not be able to separate the instruction from background conversations.

Auditory Integration difficulties can lead to a decreased ability to get information from what is heard, leading to poor comprehension and understanding with reading and difficulty following instructions.

Auditory Language Association and Classification difficulties can lead to difficulties with holding two or more concepts in relationship to each other, identify and verbalize concepts, learn to classify or categorize concepts.

A subheading of Auditory Closure is Grammatical Closure which is when a student has trouble producing grammatically correct language, understanding and applying verb tenses, plurals, etc.

Auditory - Visual Coodination difficulties lead to the inability to watch and listen or listen and copy at the same time. This leads to problems in taking notes, following along with oral reading. Other areas that can be involved are listening and visually doing something at the same time.

Copyright © 2000-01 Bonnie Terry, M. Ed.

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