Visuospatial processing speed underlies several cognitive functions critical for successful completion of everyday tasks, including driving and walking. While it is widely accepted that visuospatial processing speed peaks in early adulthood, performance across the lifespan remains incompletely characterized. Additionally, there remains a lack of…

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) often excel on visual search and crowding tasks; however, inconsistent findings suggest that this 'islet of ability' may not be characteristic of the entire spectrum. We examined whether performance on these tasks changed as a function of motor proficiency in children with varying levels of ASD…

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a prevalent disorder affecting about 5% of children reported to be linked with poor academic, social and occupational outcomes. The aim of the study was to test the visuo-motor performance of children with ADHD. The Design Copying subtest (NEPSY-II) was used to test visuo-motor functions. A total…

Speech, reading, and writing are the basic forms of linguistic communication. Therefore, it is very important to diagnose any problems with them as early and completely as possible, particularly in children with special needs. One of the methods that focuses primarily on the diagnosis and therapy of such learning difficulties is the one developed…

Perceptual processing in autism is associated with both "strengths" and "weaknesses" but within a literature that varies widely in terms of the assessments used. We report data from 12 children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and 12 age and IQ matched neurotypical controls tested on a set of tasks using the same stimuli…

Previous work has shown that 4-month-olds can discriminate between two-dimensional (2D) depictions of structurally possible and impossible objects [S. M. Shuwairi (2009), "Journal of Experimental Child Psychology", 104, 115; S. M. Shuwairi, M. K. Albert, & S. P. Johnson (2007), "Psychological Science", 18, 303]. Here, we asked whether evidence of…

The preparation of eye or hand movements enhances visual perception at the upcoming movement end position. The spatial location of this influence of action on perception could be determined either by goal selection or by motor planning. We employed a tool use task to dissociate these two alternatives. The instructed goal location was a visual…

Why are human observers particularly sensitive to human movement? Seven experiments examined the roles of visual experience and motor processes in human movement perception by comparing visual sensitivities to point-light displays of familiar, unusual, and impossible gaits across gait-speed and identity discrimination tasks. In both tasks, visual…

Investigated the nature of spatial representations underlying simple visually guided actions with 3- and 7-month-old infants. Saccades in older infants were executed within body-centered spatial coordinates that account for intervening eye movements, whereas younger infants responded according to the target's retinocentric locations without…

Twenty-eight kindergarten children (5-6 years old) were tested in order to identify children with learning disabilities and to compare tests results. (Author)

Measures of visual perception, such as the Bender Visual-Motor Gestalt Test (BVMGT) usually require motoric responding, i.e., drawing of figures. An alternative test, the Non-Motoric Visual Gestalt Test (NVGT), is compared with the BVMGT and shown to be superior in measuring visual-perceptual abilities that can discriminate poor and average…

Selected elements of reading and psychomotor characteristics among good and poor readers of divergent intellectual abilities were investigated. Four groups were selected for study: good and poor readers who were of average ability, and good and poor readers who were mentally handicapped. Approximately 160 subjects were identified for testing, and…

The author gives an account of her early teaching experiences, her awareness that many children did not learn to read, her early investigations of readiness, and her conclusions that difficulty in numbers, copying, or tracing were closely related to reading disability. The importance of visual perception, eye motility, early child development, and…

The Kindergarten Screening Instrument consists of five sub-scales and attempts to screen for possible difficulty in the areas of distant vision, hearing, eye-hand coordination, language learning, and gross motor performance. In response to many requests for follow-up activities after screening, this manual was prepared by Volunteers in Public…