Diagnostic Symptoms for Visual and Auditory Perceptual Disabilities

Introduction

Many times parents may be confused as to what a perceptual disability is and the different types involved. There are many symptoms that may indicate problems in a certain perceptual area. Some of these are observable, while others are discovered through intakes and testing. What follows is a list of symptoms that may reflect perceptual disabilities in a variety of visual areas:

 

General Visual Perceptual Problems– The student:

• Exhibits poor motor coordination
• Is awkward motorically-frequent tripping, stumbling, bumps into things, has trouble skipping,jumping
• Demonstrates restlessness, short attention span, perseveration
• Exhibits poor handwriting, artwork, drawing
• Exhibits reversals of b,d,p,q,u,n when writing beyond a chronological age of 7 or 8
• Inverts numbers (17 for 71), reverses as well
• Gives correct answers when teacher reads test, but can’t put answers down on paper
• Exhibits poor performance in group achievement tests
• Appear brighter than test scores indicate
• Poor perception of time and space.

 

Visual-Receptive Process Disability– The student:

• Does not enjoy books, pictures
• Fails to understand what is read
• Is unable to give a simple explanation of contents of a picture
• Is unable to categorize pictures

 

Visual-Association Disability- The student:

• Is unable to tell a story from pictures; can only label objects in the pictures
• Is unable to understand what he or she reads
• Fails to handle primary workbook tasks
• Needs auditory cues and clues

Manual-Expressive Disability-The student:

• Has poor handwriting and drawing
• Communicates infrequently with gestures
• Is poor at “acting out” ideas, feelings
• Is clumsy, uncoordinated
• Plays games poorly; can’t imitate other children in games

 

Visual-Memory Disability- The student:

• Exhibits frequent misspellings, even after undue practice
• Misspells his own name frequently
• Can’t write alphabet, numbers, computation facts
• Identifies words one day and fails to the next

Diagnostic Symptoms for Auditory Perceptual Disabilities

 

What follows is a list of symptoms that may reflect perceptual disabilities in a variety of auditory areas.

 

General Auditory Perceptual Indicators- The student:

• Appears less intelligent than IQ tests indicate
• Does many more things than one would expect: puts puzzles together, fixes broken objects,
• and so on
• Appears to have a speech problem
• May emphasize wrong syllables in words
• May sequence sounds oddly
• May use “small words” incorrectly
• Appears not to listen or comprehend
• Watches teacher’s or adult’s faces intently, trying to grasp words

 

Auditory Receptive Process Disability- The student:

• Fails to comprehend what he or she hears
• Exhibits poor receptive vocabulary
• Fails to identify sounds correctly
• Fails to carry out directions

 

Auditory Association Disability- The student:

• Fails to enjoy being read to him by someone else
• Has difficulty comprehending questions
• Raises hand to answer question but gives foolish response
• Is slow to respond; takes a long time to answer
• Has difficulty with abstract concepts presented auditorily

 

Verbal Expressive Disability- The student:

• Mispronounces common words
• Uses incorrect word endings and plurals
• Omits correct verbal endings
• Makes grammatical or syntactical errors that do not reflect those of his or her parents
• Has difficulty blending sounds

 

Auditory Memory Disability: The student:

• Does not know address or phone number
• Fails to remember instructions
• Has difficulty memorizing nursery rhymes or poems
• Has difficulty knowing the alphabet