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Visual discrimination is the ability to visually find the differences between objects in variables such as shape, pattern, colour, size, etc. It is also means that it is the ability to discriminate items from a background. Visual discrimination is the ability to recognise similarities and differences between visual images.

The development of visual discrimination abilities is based on a step by step developmental process. As children grow up, their visual processing skills also develop accordingly. For example if a very young child is given two cars, then the child would be able to distinguish between the two cars by looking at the physical attributions only like size, colour and by touching and handling the real objects.

When the child starts growing up they will also progress in their visual discrimination abilities and move away from real physical objects to more abstract forms. For example, if we show them 2 shapes, or draw the shapes in the paper they will be able to point out the difference between two shapes like square and circle and just by looking at it.

In the next stage of their growth, now the child learns to discriminate between alphabets and numbers, which is much more abstract when compared to just two shapes. They have to learn to discriminate between each alphabets, capital letters and small letters and then numbers. A letter or a number is a very abstract symbol for any child and to do this efficiently they should have a well developed visual discrimination skill. For example the letters b, d and p looks similar and the letters E and F look similar.

The children should get well trained in the visual discrimination abilities because it is very important factor for facilitating their reading skills.

What is visual discrimination?

Visual discrimination is the ability to identify and discriminate between letters, numbers,shapes or other objects. They need to understand and differentiate these things and what they see have different meanings.

One of the steps to teach proper reading and to encourage sight reading habits with children is to introduce the lower case alphabets also. First of all the children have to be taught the association of the capital letters ( upper case ) and the lower case alphabets. Then there are some upper case and lower case letters which looks almost identical except for the size. So those letters can be taught first and then proceed to the other different letters.

Children who have difficulties in visual discrimination may have the following issues:

1)  Be unable to identify shades of colour and texture in pictures.

2)  Confuse shapes and symbols in maths.

3)  Confuse letters, words and objects that look similar.

4)  Reverse numbers and letters when writing.

5)  Have problems with learning sight vocabulary.

6)  Have problems with comparative language (eg. taller than, shorter than, longer than).

7)  Have difficulty completing jigsaw puzzles.

8)  Have problems with copying from the board.

Identifying students with visual discrimination problems and identifying objectively those letters that students have difficulty discriminating is an important issue in the teaching of reading to young children and in finding out how to help them in their reading skills.

The app has been designed with the concept of errorless discrimination training, which means the alphabet which has to be discriminated is presented with an obvious cue which guides the user so that he cannot avoid making the correct choice. And gradually after repeated practice it moves from the most obvious cue to more generalised pattern.

Levels in the game

First level

In this level the user has to identify or pick up the capital letters from a group of special characters presented in the screen. This level will teach the user to identify the capital letters and pick them out of a group of other characters.

Second level

In this level the user has to identify or pick up the small letters from a group of special characters presented in the screen. This level will teach the user to identify the small letters and pick them out of a group of other characters.

Third level

In this level from the most obvious cues, the user will move on to more general format where the alphabets are presented in mixed format, that is both capital and small letters are given together. The user has to pick or match the given alphabet from a group of other mixed alphabets.

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