| Visual attention is one of the four brain pillars that | | | | the boat to the water or from the water to the |
| we all use to support our ability to understand the | | | | sky. You can develop your child's zoom lens, by |
| world around us. The brain relies on these four | | | | having them locate images hidden in pictures. |
| pillars - visual attention, visual memory, auditory | | | | The Visual Discriminator |
| attention, and auditory memory - to help us | | | | The brain's visual discriminator compares and |
| connect our sense organs to the brain so that we | | | | contrasts what it sees. The discriminator allows |
| can manage our everyday lives. | | | | the brain to distinguish between objects by |
| Many children that are labeled autistic are actually | | | | identifying characteristics that are similar and |
| Visual thinkers, or what we call Maverick Minds. | | | | characteristics that are different. For example, |
| Mavericks use the visual processing pathway as | | | | dogs and cats have many traits in common but |
| their first language. When they are able to use | | | | they are distinguished by a few distinct identifiers. |
| visual attention in harmony with the brain's verbal | | | | To develop the discriminator, you show your child |
| counterparts, then they can develop the | | | | an image and ask your child to find the same |
| receptive andexpressive language abilities needed | | | | image in a different picture. |
| to listen, speak, read, and write. | | | | The Visual Scanner |
| Visual attention can be tightly formatted by | | | | The visual scanner is the brain's search engine. It |
| training three sets of skills. You can teach your | | | | allows the brain to scan a set of data quickly to |
| autistic child to pay attention by helping them | | | | locate key information. |
| master these skills in a fun, failure-free learning | | | | When you train the three components of visual |
| sanctuary. The components of visual attention | | | | attention you gain support for auditory attention. |
| are: the zoom lens, the visual discriminator and the | | | | You will want to use fun exercises and rewards |
| scanner. | | | | to teach your child to pay attention. To |
| The zoom lens | | | | effectively build the visual attention system you |
| The visual zoom lens allows the brain to | | | | will also need to reduce verbal input. The visual |
| concentrate, focus, and change focus. It helps the | | | | and auditory systems should not be competing |
| brain make sense of what would otherwise be an | | | | for your child's attention. When doing the |
| incoherent jumble of visual input. When you look | | | | exercises with your child, you will want to |
| at a picture of a sailboat in the water beneath a | | | | minimize your talking. As a result, your child will be |
| sunny sky, you use the zoom lens to distinguish | | | | able to isolate the visual attention system and |
| the boat from the water and the sky. Without | | | | begin to load visual memory. The more you talk, |
| thinking about it, you can change your focus from | | | | the more you reduce visual memory capacity. |