Visual Spatial Learners at a threat......

         In a Sequential world our Visual-spatial Learners are always at a disadvantage. These VSLs are continually under a threat of being misdiagnosed as weak students or children with ADHD/ADD. In our increasingly material world, it’s becoming a trend amongst young educators/teachers to conveniently label children with such complex and serious terminologies. This kind of irresponsible behaviour not only disintegrates the potential of such Visual learners but also devastates the parents of such children.

This article is especially for the parents of such children who are right brain dominant and fundamentally are Visual-Spatial Learners.

        I have a son who is a Visual-Spatial Learner himself and would like to create awareness among parents whose children are also VSLs but unfortunately have been misdiagnosed of being ADD or ADHD. Due to the similitude of symptoms of an ADHD/ADD and a Visual-Spatial learner, it becomes all the more necessary for parents to be extra vigilant of the learning styles and behaviour patterns of their child. Here are just a few eye openers:

1. Daydreams, has a hard time paying attention. – ADHD

A VSL thinks primarily in pictures, hence most of the time is busy visualizing Concepts and Ideas.

2. Has trouble listening to what is being said. – ADHD

A VSL’s strength is visual power and severely lacks auditory skills. Hence, processing auditory commands is a difficult task for the child.

3. Is easily distracted from tasks and play. – ADHD

4. Doesn’t follow through on obeying instructions. – ADHD

A VSL is a whole-part learner. Learns concepts all at once. Hence, sequentially learning is a challenge for them. To get distracted comes naturally to them as they don’t believe, rather CANNOT learn step – by – step.

5. Is disorganized and messy. – ADHD

A VSL is a good synthesizer. Sees the big picture and generally misses out details. They might be extremely messy, one might feel that their rooms are perpetually hit by tornadoes, yet can find a needle from a haystack.

6. Doesn’t want to do things that require ongoing mental efforts. – ADHD

A VSL generally is excellent at math reasoning than computation. They learn the whole word easily than to learn to spell them, which require ongoing mental efforts. They must visualize the word/concept in order to retain them into their long-term memory. (The Glenn Doman method of teaching works wonders for these little marvels of our sequential world.)

7. Often fidgets or squirms; seems to be in constant motion. – ADHD

Touching, feeling and sensing are very essential sensorial needs of a VSL. They are much better at keyboarding than handwriting. Due to their continuous need to be on the move gives them the unique ability to scan, scan and scan continuously, hence, creating unique methods of organization and arriving at solutions more intuitively.

          There are a lot more comparisons for the two, but these were just a few from the list so that the parents may be able to understand their child better. As parents we need to be more aware of our child’s learning styles than to solely depend on a teacher’s note or an assessment done in about an hour’s time by a so called professional. Even if one has to get the child assessed please make sure the assessments are done correctly. A child who is just 3, 4, 5 or 6 years of age cannot be assessed in a matter of a few hours.