What are Visual Spatial Relations

Knowing which shoe to put on which foot. Understanding that a “b” has a bump on the right side. Putting homework on the left side of the take home folder before putting books into a locker beside the gym bag. Visual spatial relations are everywhere! Visual spatial skills in occupational therapy activities are an important skill.

Visual Spatial Relations is an important visual perceptual skill that is important for many functional tasks. Visual spatial relations allows the organization of the body in relation to objects or spatial awareness. This is an important part of spatial awareness in handwriting and many other movement-based activities. An important part of visual spatial relations includes laterality and directionality. These terms refer to left-right body awareness and the ability to perceive left/right relationship of objects.

What are visual spatial relations and how are visual relationships and visual concepts needed for functional tasks?

The following tasks require visual spatial relations:

Letter formation and number formation

Writing letters without reversal

Reading letters without reversal

Sports

Completing puzzles

Walking in a crowded hallway without running into others

Standing in line without bumping into others

Left/right awareness

Understanding spatial reasoning concepts such as beside/under/next to/etc

Reading without losing one’s place

Copying written work with appropriate spatial awareness

Reading maps

These activities all require the ability to perceive an object in space. The way they interpret position in space to their body and to other objects in the environment impacts motor skills.

Spacing pieces of a puzzle amongst the others and writing in relation to the lines is one way to work on this skill.