In my last article, I introduced the concept of visual-spatial learners (VSL) and listed characteristics of this type of learning versus auditory-sequential learners. I ended the article with general academic suggestions for VSL children in school. This month’s article will continue with the needs of the visual-spatial learner as challenges arise in the home and how to advocate for your VSL in the school setting.

Visual-spatial learners are often labeled disorganized, unfocused, late-for-everything, poor at spelling and are even worse with handwriting. But as Alexandra Shires Golon, a mother of two VSL children states, “If there were no visual-spatial learners among us we’d be without art and dance, without science and invention, without drama and choreography, without most things that make life beautiful.” So the point is not to try to change them as much as to try to change the way the world views them and allows them their differences.

If as a parent you are an organized, sequential learner then you can understand becoming frustrated when it involves raising your unorganized, visual-spatial learner. But this frustration shouldn’t mean that your child should always get his way and that he can leave his room in a tornado-ravaged condition or write papers that look like they are scratched out in a not-yet-discovered foreign script called Boomerang or Barbed-Wire. With a little bit of advice, you can create synchronization at home between the ‘left-brainers’ and ‘right-brainers.’

Visual-spatial learners will benefit the most by watching you demonstrate good behavior or how to accomplish a task rather than listening to you explain it to them. So when you are trying to incorporate new rules (or are reviewing old rules that you’ve explained a million times!) remember to SHOW not TELL. Think about your daily routine; it usually consists of rattling off a list of things that you want accomplished before you come back in a half an hour to check to see if it’s done. Your ‘picture’ of what that living space should look like once its clean will never be transferred into the mind of your VSL child no matter how often you tell, cajole or explain. But if you take the time, just once, to clean and organize the room along with your child, then they have the visual template or picture for future cleanings. Probably the best thing to do at that moment when the room is exactly as you like it, is to take pictures! This allows your child to have a tangible end-product that they can refer to each time the room needs to be cleaned. Paste them in a ‘My Clean Room’ book and beside each picture write a note, for example, “All of my clean clothes are in my drawers.”

Here are some other ideas for keeping peace and organization in your home:

• Have plastic tubs in the room and labeled so that there is no question of what goes where
• Create a checklist (with pictures) to get your children ready and out the door for school each morning. Without this type of organizer, your child is messing with the cat, making submarines out of the Cheerios and has never even wondered where his book bag or shoes are. Have your child help create this checklist so that he becomes responsible for the steps written there.
• Develop a system so that each morning his school clothes are laid out in the same place, the cereal bowl is at his place at the table, ready and waiting for him to fill it and the toothbrush and toothpaste are visible at the sink. By helping him become organized through familiarity and routine, he will eventually be able to remember what is required throughout his day.
• Develop a ‘stop light’ approach when getting ready to go someplace. Color code cards with red for the first steps, yellow for the second steps and green for the last measures needed before it’s time to GO!
• Help your child visualize the consequences of not completing a task. Ask him, What will happen if you forget to brush your teeth? Paint the picture of lots of future dentist visits, drilling out cavities and having a not-so-nice smile or bad breath. What happens if you don’t put away your toys? Explain that they can get misplaced or broken, he’ll be sad and that you most likely won’t buy another to replace it. Always think----“I need to create a visual image for him.”
• Mary Poppins sang and danced to ‘help the medicine go down.’ Use music as a way to get chores completed. “We need to finish these dishes before five songs are over” or “Let’s clean the kitchen before this CD ends.”
• VSL’s like variety, silliness and absurdity. Try creating a movie scene out of the job. Will aliens arrive if the house isn’t clean? Are you the aliens with your space lasers, blasting dirt away? How would Harry Potter do this job?
• Hide a ‘surprise’ in among the things to do. A note in a pair of pants that need to be picked up could say, “When the clothes are all hung up, come to the kitchen for a treat.”
• Your child may be hesitant to try new things, even if it’s a fun game with friends. It’s important to let him observe the game being played until he feels safe that he understands it. Without the pressure of questions like, “Why don’t you want to take a turn?” Or “Are you afraid to do this?” and by just allowing your child to watch and learn at his own speed, he will step up one day and play the game exactly as it was shown to him.
• Another area of frustration is that visual-spatial learners require far less sleep than other children and parents get easily frustrated by having no ‘down time’ of their own. Instead of sleeping, these kids are inventing robots, imaginary friends and making up vivid horror scenes with their imaginative minds. Set up time rules such as, “For the next two hours, you’ll be watching videos while mommy and daddy talk or read the paper. When that time is up, we can play a game together.”
• As far as trying to get kids to actually calm down and go to sleep, play soothing music or read a book they’ve heard a hundred times. This cuts down on his imagination kicking into high gear with new things to think about. If your child has nightmares, hang a dream catcher above the bed and explain the Native American belief that dream catchers sift out the good and bad dreams and send the bad ones through the hole in the center to never be viewed again.
• Refrain from movies, TV or the computer within two hours of bedtime; research indicates that the pineal gland gets stimulated from these activities, reducing the output of melatonin, the chemical facilitator of sleep.
• When giving instructions, ask your child to repeat back what they see themselves doing based on what you just asked them to do. If your pictures don’t match as to what should be accomplished, explain it again.

Advocating for your child in the educational setting can be another area of frustration. Schools are almost always have sequentially taught subjects; an environment that VSL children will not thrive in. Start by teaching your children about their particular learning style and what it means to them. Help them to see their strengths and to honor these just as they would honor other children’s strengths and weaknesses. Next, take the time to educate relatives about visual-spatial learner’s so when your son stays over, they don’t label him a behavior problem when he takes apart the vacuum just to reassemble it again or when he won’t follow directions. Thirdly, and the most important point for successful schooling, is to educate his teachers. Have them read Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual Spatial Learner by Linda Silverman. Offer to buy it for the school library. Copy pages out of it that list the characteristics of visual-spatial learners versus auditory sequential learners. (Pages 70-71) Teachers (almost always) appreciate new knowledge or a refresher article on previously learned information.

Other suggestions in helping to create a positive learning place for your child are:

• Offer to help in the classroom by creating materials that make learning more visual or hands-on. Use the right hemisphere to stimulate learning by using color, humor, imagery and manual manipulation.
• The use of acronyms, funny hand gestures, talking in a fake accent or incorporating a made-up song will help the VSL child learn and recall new information.
• Help create deadline sheets and organizational charts for each of your child’s classes. Left on his own, time and the concept that time runs out and that there are consequences, will not occur to your child.
• Because visual-spatial learners often feel dumb, encourage the teacher to highlight your child’s talents when there is a natural opening for this.
• Ask the teacher to hand your child the material that he would be required to copy from the board. This copying task leads to frustration, then to distractibility if it seems too hard.
• Suggest that the teacher create a space at the back of the classroom where the ‘wiggle worms’ can go to stand. If there’s a podium there, they can even do homework while standing.

Whatever methods or accommodations you choose, keep the interactions with the school positive. As you work together to unravel your child’s potential, he will be the one who ultimately benefits.

Some other great sources or books full of suggestions for visual-spatial learners are:

1. Wholes and Patterns: Reading Help for Struggling Gifted Visual-Spatial
   Learners by Betty Maxwell.
2. www.Visualspatial.org
3. Memorize in Minutes: The Times Tables by A. Walker
4. www.angelfire.com
5. www.graphic.org
6. Teaching for the Two-Sided Mind by L.V. Williams