Appendix F- Perceptual-Motor Barriers to Learning

 Learning takes place in different ways, for instance:

 Learning through conditioning. Conditioning refers to pleasure-pain principle. Learning
takes place because people learn over experience that is more agreeable to act in a specific
manner. Learning may take place accidentally or deliberately planned. For example, persons
may discover incidentally that they may hurt themselves and burn hands if they put them on
the burning stove.
 Learning through exercise. Several abilities might be acquired through continuous practises.
 Learning through imitation (modelling). Persons may obtain knowledge by copying what
other people such as parents, teachers, older siblings and friends act in particular manners.
This kind of obtaining knowledge for the acquisition of social skills.
 Learning through insight. This is the chief kind of learning and in this case the learners learn
because they process inside, arrange knowledge and this come to new prospect.
 New knowledge must thus be compared to old information and correlations should be
drawn and all is stored in the memory.
 This requires intelligent, language and perceptual abilities.

Learning difficulties

 Learning difficulties is a common word which is utilised to indicate any difficulties learners
may face with learning, which causes them to delay when compared to other learners.
 Learning problems in preschool learners, learning problems may create language, cognitive
and perceptual-motor gaps.
 These learners cannot succeed scholastically if they do not get extra support, they will not
be successfully finish learning.
 In the special educational needs, learners with learning difficulties is the largest group and it
is rare not to have learners with learning difficulties.
 Learning difficulties may be caused by any of the following conditions:
1) Learners are sufficiently provided with chances for learning experience for example,
utilisation of scissors or pencil grip or access to books so they increase visual-motor skills.
2) There are learners who have a chance to experience learning but due to some challenges
such as physical, visual, auditory or intellectual disabilities, they could not use opportunity
available.
3) Learners have challenges with cognitive operations such as perception, concentration,
thinking, recall, transmission or with one or more of the cognitive processes.
4) Factors that can effect learner’s capacity to learn are defective motivation, disorganisation
and behavioural problem.
5) A number of additional factors that can cause learning challenges are home, environment,
shortage of a good role model or harmful influence of peers.
 Learners with learning challenges will not be able recognise their capacity for schooling.
 They may have challenges in all school subjects or in only one subject or in certain aspect of
a subject or throughout learner’s learning or only during a certain phase or during a single
year or during part of a year.
 It is frequently that a challenge may clear up without the parents’ or teachers’ intervention
and help in the classroom or at home when doing homework.

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  Most other learners resolve their challenges after a number of sessions which are not fixed
concentrating especially at helping them and these learners are called underachievers.
 In some cases, learners never overcome, regardless of thorough help and these learners are
referred as poor achievers or learning disabled.
 The learners who are deprive by their environment to achieve are called risk learners.
 They have challenges in all other learning areas and it is a problem to conquer their
handicap.
 Learners must be assisted as a group if they have similar problem such as reading because it
is impractical to assist individual learner.
 Learning difficulties may appear as a developmental problem at preschool.

Overview of the Study Material

1. The Importance of Perceptual-Motor Development

 It is barely normal that learning experience occur where perceptual-motor skills do not take
part.
 Learners grow quickly in preschool because they learn with their bodies as spring-board for
learning.
 Further learning difficulties can be created when a small child have physical, perceptual or
motor problems.

2. Manifestation of Perceptual-Motor Problems at the Preschool Level

2.1.Motor Manifestation
 Gross motor problems. Lack of gross motor coordination causes awkwardness, lack of
equilibrium and irregular rhythm in the utilisation of larger muscles of the body for
example, when the small child crawls, walks, runs, jumps, rolls, kicks etc. Difficulties can
be noticed outdoor through movement games and music.
 Fine motor problems. Learners with poor fine-motor coordination will have difficulties
in the utilisation of the smaller muscles which are used through creative activities and
art, for instance cutting, drawing and collage activities will cause difficulties.
 They struggle to do buttons, thread beads, build with small blocks and page through
books.
 Difficulties can be noticed through art activities, while controlling small educational
gadget and when playing outside.
 Visual-motor coordination problems. At times learners have problems with the
coordination between eye and hand or eye and foot in order to effectively, they should
perform actions with hands and feet.
 Difficulties may appear in lack of finger and hand movement throughout activities
that require greater capacities.
2.2.Perceptual-Motor Manifestations
 Spatial perception. At first, learners have to learn to perceive things in a proper relationship
to themselves before they observe them in relation to each other.
 Activities and practises that promote body awareness are very significant in preschool
because they learn that things may be far away, close, big or small in relation to
themselves and concurrently, in relation to each other.

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  Learners cannot signal front/ behind, under, over and beside, cannot show first, middle
and depth or distance in ball games, for example, they cannot follow instructions
correctly and so frequently get misplaced.
 Laterality. Laterality is a concept that must be developed by learners themselves, therefore
it is not a concept that should be taught.
 The awareness of left and right of the body develops from the function of the balance.
At times, learners cannot cross their arms over the chest.
 If these learners are requested to draw a horizontal from one side to the other side of
the page, they will draw a line with their left hand to the middle of the page and then
proceed with their right hand.
 Lateral dominance. Dominance also grows laterality. It is also a growing procedure that
learners process over naturally.
 Learners respond properly to instructions to move to the left or right even if they have
not yet increased a natural awareness of left and right.
 Learners may have a difficult with the concept of left and right in the outside the body if
they arrive at the phase of formal schooling without having recognizing their control.
 As a result, they might have a challenge in differentiating the different in direction
between b and d and this creates a challenge in reading, writing and spelling.
 Directionality. Direction certainty is also an outcome of laterality and has significant effects
for educational learning.
 Learners must learn their body so that they can have a spatial world and know exactly
where in space object for them are.
 In formal school, these learners will have a challenge with the sequence in which signs
are organized and might for example, turn numbers reversed (6/9).

2.3.Perceptual Manifestation
 It is very difficult to recognise whether a young child is merely growing slowly or if is
experiencing perceptual difficulties.
 There are learners who do not observe on relevant visual information or concentrate on
irrelevant parts.
 Perceptual deficiencies can cause problems in reading, writing and spelling when these
learners arrive at elementary school.
 Visual perception problems. Young learners might have difficulties with sorting and
classification of objects, especially according to colour, shape, size and type.
 Some learners experience a problem to differentiate between and identify different
shapes, while others cannot classify shapes/objects that manifest in various location,
size or colour to the ones they are acquainted with.
 Perceptual problems in one of these aspects can create a serious learning problem in a
child in the elementary phase.
 Auditory perception problems. Learners who experience auditory perceptual difficulties
may display one or a numerous of the following problems:
 Some learners may have listening problems when struggle to recognise everyday sounds
and surrounding sounds such as wind and birds. Those learners find it difficult to focus
to the teacher’s directions and distinguish between background and foreground noise in
order to direct their focus. They also experience a challenge to regulate attention at self-
control.

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 
Some learners might find it challenging in perceiving the differences and similarities
between words. They find it difficult to recognise contrast in words such as hard/soft,
fast/slow, high/low, far/near, beginning, middle and end.
 At a later stage, these learners experience a problem in differentiating words, breaking
up words, putting the sounds together to create a word, learn by rote songs and rhymes,
recall and carry out directions and retell a simple story in a logical order.
 There must be a close cooperation between the teachers and occupational therapists
because perceptual difficulties are the field of occupational therapist.

3. Assistance to Learners with Perceptual Motor Problems

 Learners do not experience perceptual practises meaningful, therefore they should be
presented in an assimilated manner such a game so they would not even recognise that
they are busy with exercises.
 Learners tend to avoid activities that they experience challenges at so it is significant to
focus to the child’s weak areas.
 Skills learnt in one condition are necessary transferred to other conditions because
exercising particular perceptual-motor skills in a quarantined condition does not mean that
these might be transferred to other places.
 A path of different textures can be lay out where learners can walk on, crawl and slide
across, for instant, an uneven piece of cardboard.
 Recreations like ‘’I spy …’’ can be joined with motor movements, such as jump like a frog
and touch something red.
 Games like ‘’touch your knee with your hand’’ assist learners to comprehend their body
parts.
 Memory games such as ‘’ I go to the shops and I buy… can be played. One child can start and
each learner adds one item to the list rest on the group.

Activity

1. Describe and evaluate different perceptual-motor barriers that learners may experience at
school.
2. Briefly describe the manifestations of perceptual-motor barriers to learning.
3. What are the practical strategies that you can apply to support learners with perceptual-
motor barriers to learning?