Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy Activities/careers for visual-spatial kids

DS's visual spatial ability doesn't seem to translate to his own body and where it is in space. So he could be holding a tray of food that is at a 45 degree angle with everything about to drop on the floor and he doesn't even notice. DD is good with "individual" sports like gymnastics or swimming but doesn't seem to have the processing speed necessary to do well with most sports with balls. So by the time her brain becomes aware that the ball is space X and she needs to do Y, the ball is somewhere else. The exception being maybe golf, where the ball doesn't move til you hit it. It would be interesting to do a study on people who are good athletes and if it correlates to processing speed, visual-spatial ability, etc. and which sports relate to which abilities.

I posted earlier but after lilmiissunshine's post I'll add sports. Growing up I played everything and anything but eventually gravitated towards mostly team sports. I love seeing and being part of amazing passing plays which perhaps v-s would help with. I still play 2 sports very competitively (one provincially, one nationally) and absolutely love them. Being able to break something athletic down and translate that into movement is key to learning most sports. Of course the translating part doesn't always match the breaking down as blackcat has pointed out.

For your pattern-recognizing DD I'd suggest decoding puzzles.

As for a career path, have her look into working for the government.

Thanks Ametrine, I'll print some out and try them.

I bought a game called Khet at a thrift store and knew I would be hopeless at it. It looks a bit like chess but you take out the other player's pieces with a laser light and mirrors. If the light hits a piece it is taken out. Dh is good at chess and other visual activities just like the kids so I had him play it with DD. Holy smokes, she was barely even looking at the board but was taking out his pieces left and right with almost no thought put into it. It was hilarious watching Dh actually studying the board while DD was spinning around, chatting with me, etc, then DD taking out his pieces after she looked at the board for 3 seconds. All Dh would say is "she was better than I thought she would be." I haven't tried it with DS--I'm not sure he's good enough with planning/strategy and it looked like it might be frustrating for him. Just thought I'd put that out there for other visual kids who might like it.

DD loves Khet, but rapidly ran out of takers.

I think I've mentioned this before, blackcat, but check out Ricochet Robots for your DD, too. If she's good at Khet I bet she'll be good at this, too.

We actually had that game a couple years ago (another thrift store find!) and I think I got rid of it since I found it frustrating. Either that or it's stashed in a box in the basement. I'll have to look around.