Visual scanning is an important skill for children to develop. Coordinating their eye movements to focus on something as they also move across a visual field is a component of reading as they look at letters from left to right. It is also important as they look up at what a teacher writes on a board and then look down to copy it onto a page.
Generally speaking, children follow different progressive stages in the development of visual-motor skills:
1. Awareness of an object and fixation on it long enough to recognize it.
2. Visual tracking of an object as it moves around, by moving the eyes to follow the object and maintaining a gaze on it.
3. Visually scanning the environment to find an object and shifting the gaze while changing visual fixation as needed.
4. Discriminating differences within and between objects.
Visual tracking involves smooth eye movement pursuits, with slower eye movements to keep the moving object in the fovea of the eye.
Visual scanning involves the use of saccadic eye movements. These are rapid movements of the eyes that change abruptly from one point of fixation to another as the eyes jump to a suddenly moving target, or for example, as they jump from reading one word to another, or from a target on a blackboard to a paper where a response is required.
Some children have difficulty in the development of smooth and saccadic eye movement skills and may benefit from a period of regular practice with visual tracking and scanning exercises. For that purpose, I have developed this webpage for use in the school and home. I recommend practicing these visual exercises with glasses on if they are used. Set a timer or use a monitor if possible, and practice each exercise for one minute. Then stop, close the eyes for ten seconds, and move on to the next exercise. (Note: If you suspect vision problems related to visual acuity, visual convergence or divergence of the eyes, an examination by an opthamologist or optometrist it is always recommended.)
EXERCISES:
( First we will do horizontal and vertical visual tracking exercises on this page, then horizontal and vertical visual scanning exercises on page 2. After this you can have some fun trying to follow different objects with your eyes for practice with combinations of scanning and tracking in different directions on page 3. )
1. Move the scroll bar at the right until you can only see the light track below. While keeping your head still, keep your eyes on the red light beam as it goes back and forth across the page. Concentrate on this for one minute. When you are done with this, close your eyes for 10 seconds. Then, scroll down to the next exercise.
Generally speaking, children follow different progressive stages in the development of visual-motor skills:
1. Awareness of an object and fixation on it long enough to recognize it.
2. Visual tracking of an object as it moves around, by moving the eyes to follow the object and maintaining a gaze on it.
3. Visually scanning the environment to find an object and shifting the gaze while changing visual fixation as needed.
4. Discriminating differences within and between objects.
Visual tracking involves smooth eye movement pursuits, with slower eye movements to keep the moving object in the fovea of the eye.
Visual scanning involves the use of saccadic eye movements. These are rapid movements of the eyes that change abruptly from one point of fixation to another as the eyes jump to a suddenly moving target, or for example, as they jump from reading one word to another, or from a target on a blackboard to a paper where a response is required.
Some children have difficulty in the development of smooth and saccadic eye movement skills and may benefit from a period of regular practice with visual tracking and scanning exercises. For that purpose, I have developed this webpage for use in the school and home. I recommend practicing these visual exercises with glasses on if they are used. Set a timer or use a monitor if possible, and practice each exercise for one minute. Then stop, close the eyes for ten seconds, and move on to the next exercise. (Note: If you suspect vision problems related to visual acuity, visual convergence or divergence of the eyes, an examination by an opthamologist or optometrist it is always recommended.)
EXERCISES:
( First we will do horizontal and vertical visual tracking exercises on this page, then horizontal and vertical visual scanning exercises on page 2. After this you can have some fun trying to follow different objects with your eyes for practice with combinations of scanning and tracking in different directions on page 3. )
1. Move the scroll bar at the right until you can only see the light track below. While keeping your head still, keep your eyes on the red light beam as it goes back and forth across the page. Concentrate on this for one minute. When you are done with this, close your eyes for 10 seconds. Then, scroll down to the next exercise.
Janet Solomon's O.T. Visual Scanning Page
2. Now that you have the idea, do the same thing with the objects moving back and forth below. Move the scroll bar until you can only see the objects moving one at a time. While keeping your head still, keep your eyes on the objects as they go back and forth across the page. Concentrate on each for one minute. When you are done with this, close your eyes for 10 seconds. Then, scroll down to the exercises.
3. Now we will try visually tracking objects as they move from left to right, the direction you would use when reading words on a page. Move the scroll bar at the right until you can only see the object on your comuter screen. While keeping your head still, keep your eyes on the object as it moves left to right across the page. Concentrate on this for one minute. When you are done with this, close your eyes for 10 seconds. Then, scroll down to the next exercise.
4. Now we will try visually tracking objects as they move from up and down, the direction you would use when copying words from the board to a page. Move the scroll bar at the right until you can only see the object going up and down on your comuter screen. While keeping your head still, keep your eyes on the object as it moves up and down across the page. Concentrate on this for one minute. When you are done with this, close your eyes for 10 seconds. Then, scroll down to the next exercise.
Now that we have practiced both horizontal and vertical smooth visual tracking, go to the next page where we will practice visual scanning with saccadic moving objects that make our eyes jump from one movement to the next. PAGE 2 If you prefer to skip practice with saccadic eye movements and want to go directly to practice with a variety of eye movements, you can go to PAGE 3.
(To get the most out of these exercises, try to maximize this page on your computer screen by closing out any favorites or other bars on the left or right margins so that the screen for this is the entire width of your computer screen. )