Perceptual Development

Perceptual development is a subtopic of cognitive development , where children learn to start interpreting and understanding sensory input. Children usually begin to explore their perceptual skills after their first year of life and continue to develop throughout their entire lifespan. The key years to shape a child’s perceptual motor skills are in their early years. Parents can do this by teaching, talking, and interacting with their children in warm and responsive ways. Teaching a child perceptual motor skills includes teaching them movements related to time such as moving fast or slow, directional movements such as moving forward or backwards, and teaching them special awareness. The coordination of nature and nurture is also apparent in the perceptual preferences of small children. Genes guide the formation of a child’s brain to be receptive to certain kinds of perceptual information, including: voices, touch, and faces.

Spatial Awareness

Spatial awareness is a key component in the success of developing perceptual skills. If a child can understand where their body is, then they can understand physical boundaries, navigate their environments successfully, and organize objects and people in their world both mentally and physically. Spatial awareness can be developed by allowing children to use their senses to explore their environments.

Let's Get Perceptual!

Teaching your children to use their senses can be fun! Play games such as hide & seek, practice putting things together and taking them apart, stack and rearrange objects, filling objects and then emptying them, and playing spatial sports such as baseball, basketball, or gymnastics! You can even get creative!

Paint!

Draw!

Make Arts and Crafts!

Puzzles!

Matching and Sorting!