Last Updated on October 9, 2023 by Editorial Team
REVIEWED BY NUMBERDYSLEXIA’S EXPERT REVIEW PANEL ON DEC 17, 2021
We all know 3 comes after 2 and Z after Y due to the sequential commemoration of numbers and alphabets. The same notion can be applied to retain shapes and pictures too. But, not all kids can grasp this in their tender years. Sometimes, they need individualized pedagogy and special training to compete with peers. This is identical to Visual Sequential memory too. Despite the learning disability, custom-made strategies can aid these children.
In this accord, we will ponder what visual sequential memory precisely is, mull into its effect on children having learning disabilities like dyslexia and dyscalculia, and finally, analyze some techniques to refine the same.
Visual Sequential Memory- A pivotal skill in academics
Having the ability to remember and recollect a set of objects, events, or letters in a correct sequence is crucial. This capability is known as Visual Sequential Memory. A kid with such exceptional memory can spell and read language effortlessly. Moreover, they can easily
perform operations like addition and subtraction. Predominantly, this skill is cleaved into:
1. Short-Term Visual Sequential Memory
Having the capability to recall images and words that the person has just viewed is essential, which accounts for Short-Term Visual Sequential Memory. The lack of such memory can make a student have difficulty copying notes from the board. These learners can feel it demanding to retain words long enough to pass on to paper.
2. Long-Term Visual Sequential Memory
It is that potential to recollect images, letters, and places that were soaked up in the distant past. The dearth of such memories can make it taxing for students to recall lectures taught months ago in the examination.
Boasting exceptional Visual sequential memory can add value to both academics and day-to-day routines. Apart from facile recognition of letters and numbers, it can have the following benefits:
- Reading comprehension with spelling and sight words. Additionally, they form a mental image of the word in a flash.
- Kids can painlessly take notes and work on calculators.
- Remembering directions and places of important objects in the house like keys.
- Retaining phone numbers, and objects from distant memory.
An edge for your youngster?
The connection between differently-abled children and visual sequential memory is just about unspecified. While some believe in techniques to improve such memories, research by Martine Hedenius[1] asserts something contradictory. A group of dyslexic and non-dyslexic children was compared for 24 hours to assess their visual memory. The results of which showed that dyslexic students performed marginally faster in distinguishing drawings and remembering them.
Short-Term Memory- Is it a snag?
Realizing that learning makes pupils outstanding visual learners, we may leave out some little quirks. Research by Denise Swan[2] shows that differently-abled children with learning disabilities may feel pressed with phonological awareness and thus feel very strenuous to manage lengthy reading tasks. However, some effortlessly handle words.
Long-Term Memory- Do they have implicit memory?
Also known as implicit memories, all humans have long-term memories. However, information can only be retained by properly perceiving it, which means the details need to be placed judiciously through stimuli. Individuals with dyslexia or dyscalculia often have poor anchoring— which means that they are not able to recollect a few aspects of the information; thus, leading to noisy long-term impressions. This plainly expresses that proper stimuli can make up a pronounced and prominent reminiscence.
What happens when Visual sequential memory is compromised due to Dyslexia and Dyscalculia?
We have so far pondered how long-term and short-term memories may sometimes exert for special needs children. Research by Delphine Lassus-Sangosse[3] evidently demonstrates a deficit in simultaneous virtual processing with preserved serial processing skills in Dyslexic pupils. Since both of these skills are related to reading performance, it is apparent that these may lead to some compromises.
These compromises can be spotted in day-to-day routines. For instance, if a toddler dupes ‘CAT’ from the textbook as ’ACT’ or ‘TAC’, it is a clear attestation that they may be compromised in sequential memory. The lack is noticeable from recollecting numbers to copying them into their notes.
Despite generalized testimonials, evidently, no two students are identical. Thus they may need divergent magnitudes of mentoring. In this accord, several refining techniques can be picked to enhance visual sequential evocation in them. If your toddler feels it burdensome to comprehend words, don’t fret, you can try these techniques to ensure productive results.
Techniques and strategies to make it work
Inculcating visual memory may take extra effort; however, the stress can be mitigated by opting for some amusing techniques.
1. Mental exercises- Easy yet Potent
Since visual sequential memory doesn’t just stop at academics, some mental exercises can aid in a stronger personality too. To retain faces, you may ask your kid to assign a nickname for facile spotting. To cherish names, you may insist on associating them with their mental image. The same is the case for places too. Elementary exercises like meditations, walking, and short stories can retain daily entities to ensure enhanced sequence impressions.
2. Games and activities- Something your toddler would admire
Who doesn’t love games and activities? These engaging pedagogies can aid any learner. Games can improve cognitive abilities and reaction times; these are plausible and obliging to improve consecutive optical memory. Games like puzzles mark the difference, and memory cards are constructive.
3. Visual Therapy- A Doc Delight
Since 80% of learning comes through Visual pathways, all the 17 ocular skills, which are eye movements, should operate efficiently. However, a remarkable percentage of kids go through a lack of these abilities. However, a set of eye exercises can embellish them with visual information and processing skills. As a part of this remedy, practical skills like Saccades and visual integration are examined and retained.
The bottom line- Should you fret?
Visual Sequential memories have a large set of edges like better comprehension and pre-reading skills awareness. Techniques like mental practices and games can be reckoned with preferred manipulatives to give out the finest upshot.
Sequential deficits are detected in dyslexic students with phonological disorders. However, not all individuals with dyslexia and dyscalculia will have visual sequential memory difficulty. Thus, it wouldn’t be legit to make generic inferences since no two kids are alike. Altogether, it can be advocated that special needs children can be furnished with some intensive individualized strategies to amplify these skills.
References:
- Enhanced Recognition Memory after Incidental Encoding in Children with Developmental Dyslexia: Hedenius M. (2013, May 23)
- Phonological Awareness Deficits in Developmental Dyslexia and the Phonological Representations Hypothesis: Swan D.
- Sequential or simultaneous visual processing deficit in developmental dyslexia?: Sangoss D. (2008, March)
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,