Visual perceptual therapy is performed for individuals that have shown difficulty on perceptual tests or who have shown signs of visual perceptual problems in school. A comprehensive vision examination and sensorimotor examination should be performed before commencing therapy to uncover any ocular health or visual gathering problems. Visual perceptual skills are significantly correlated with acdemic performance. It must be kept clear, however, that visual perceptual therapy is addressing visual problems and not learning problems. Visual perceptual problems that are addresssed in therapy include:

• Visual Analysis – ability to match patterns
• Visual Memory – ability to remember and understand what is seen
• Visualization – ability to visualize a picture or pattern would look like from a different perspective
• Visual fine motor integration – ability to process and reproduce visual images by writing or drawing
• Visual form perception – ability to discriminate differences in size, shape or form
• Laterality and Directionality – development of left and right awareness

Symptoms of visual perceptual problems include, but are not limited to, difficulty recognizing letters, words, or simple shapes, distinguishing the main idea for insignificant details, poor reading comprehension, poor spelling, sloppy handwriting, poor copying skills, reversals or letters and words, and trouble with mathematical concepts such as size, magnitude, and position.