Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Could DD be gifted visual spatial/2e

Hello again, just wanted to post an update on DD following our vision therapy assessment. I think it’s clear she has significant visual processing deficits. I’ll post her scores below, hoping someone on here might have experience of this and have some advice to offer particularly with regards to strategies at school. She will be undertaking vision therapy but I gather only time will tell if it is effective.

The optometrist said it was a testament to her intellect that she managed to perform as she did on the wisc and wiatt. She again demonstrated very good visual memory particularly sequential memory. I was standing behind her as she did these test to allow for comparison and I noticed as I was doing the sequential memory tests I was trying to encode the shapes into language in order to remember them. This strategy only worked so far as I didn’t have time to do this once the sequences became longer than 4 or 5 shapes. D completed this test and I think only got one maybe 2 wrong. I asked her how she managed to memorise them and it appears she captures it as one image so I’m thinking this would be eidetic memory? Additionally at the time I noticed she did better at digits backwards than digits forward. I’m less concerned about auditory memory as I believe once she can keep her eyes still this will improve her listening.

Her scores are:

Developmental Eye Movement Test - unable to complete
Visual motor integration - 1st percentile
Jordan’s reversal test - 1st percentile
Visual memory - 75th percentile
Visual sequential memory - 91st percentile
Visual discrimination - < 1st percentile
Visual form consistency - 2nd percentile
Visual spatial relationships - < 1st percentile
Visual figure ground - 5th percentile
Visual closure - 9th percentile
Perceptual speed - 3rd percentile
Spatial relations - 3rd percentile
Auditory number memory forward - 2nd percentile
Auditory number memory reversed - 13th percentile

The school have referred us to our local authority Ed psych but that is not going to be a quick process. I’m still wondering about NVLD, does VPD come under the umbrella of NVLD. I read an account by Jess Oppenheimer and his experience with VPD and he mentions that all his other sense became more integrated following vision therapy which may account for some of her other quirks like her dislike for tight clothing!

Again any insight, advice or experience is greatly appreciated.

Thank you Portia it is reassuring to hear the positive effects VT has had for your son. It was difficult to watch DD struggle so much with some parts of the tests. I couldn’t understand how I had not noticed it before. She has always done so well at school and with sports so there was never any red flags. Looking back though I think there were definite inconsistencies in her school and sports performance which has led to her struggling with her self esteem. I am hoping VT will help with consistency and ultimately her confidence in herself!