Visual form constancy
Visual form constancy
Children who have issues with visual form constancy experience difficulty in identifying the same objects shown /seen in different contexts. For example, they know what shoes are but they may fail to identify a shoe which is drawn in an odd angle in a sheet of paper having pictures of many other objects. A child who can identify alphabets but has difficulty in identifying the alphabets in different positions – upside down, sideways etc- has visual form constancy.
Activities for improving visual form constancy
- For learning alphabets, use models having three dimensions. Plastic clay or flour can be used to make three dimensional objects. Have children make models of alphabets using different material.
- Write, on a board, letters/words in different fonts and in different angles and require the child to identify these. Make the child write letters/words in different fonts.
- Captcha is used to tell the humans and computers apart. A useful activity for children is to read captcha. Tangrams and origami are useful to understand shapes and sizes. Encourage children to play with Meccano sets, a children’s toy containing plastic or metal components to make mechanical models. Collage is a piece of art made by sticking various objects, fabrics, pictures on a thick sheet of paper. Parents can make collages and ask children to identify the objects. Shapes can be made by using beads of different colours and these can be displayed at odd angles. Children have to identify the shapes.
Related activities in this website: Copy It, Shadow Match, Word Boxes, and Jigsaw Puzzle, Word Chain, and Word Wheel Game.
- Sorting activities: Mix many things in a tray and require the child to sort these. Screws, buttons, beads, marbles, seeds and other objects of different sizes and colours can be used for this exercise.
- The internet provides many worksheets on visual form constancy. Search for: worksheets on visual form constancy.