The Center for Visual Management

Anxiety and Spatial Organization Issues

          Children and adults with impaired spatial organization skills live in a world where perception and reality constantly clash, and nothing is truly where it seems to be. Their inability to accurately interpret or predict events around them makes them tense, anxious and fearful. Many are clumsy, falling frequently or bumping into other people accidentally. Some can’t hit a baseball, while others have trouble even buttoning a shirt or eating with a knife and fork.
           
            For higher functioning people with spatial organization deficits, driving is a white knuckle experience and navigating a crowded street or department store can be stress provoking. For those with more obvious problems, even the simplest activities- sitting in a classroom, swinging on the playground, watching television can provoke extreme anxiety.
           
            The more significant the conflict between spatial perception and reality, the more severe the resulting symptoms will be. They include:

• Poor social skills
• Gait problems
• Hyperactivity
• Anxiety/Panic attacks
• Significant impairments in coordination and sensory integration

Visual Management of Anxiety

          Joseph LeDeoux in his book The Emotional Brain has illustrated the concept that models the visual management of anxiety, and that is the concept that you cannot separate the psychophysiology of the individual.

            The first allows the individual to maintain control throughout, while the second they give up control for a faster divident.

Attention Deficit Disorders

           
            Clinically, an experienced observer can recognize different degrees of attention. They are each subject to psycho-physiological perceptual styles.

1. Hyper attention
2. Hypo attention
3. Relaxed attention

            The hyper attentive individual is a determined individual who is going to  succeed at any price.
            The hypo attentive individual is an avoider of visual interaction.
            The relaxed attention individual maximizes their intake of knowledge.

            A deficit in attention draws flags when the individual for whatever reason falls behind at school, work, or social settings. The treatment model for visual attention deficit disorders is holistically based. That is, treat the person as a whole rather than the visual system in isolation.
            The Center for Visual Management has a highly interactive view of the developmental process, in which mind, body and world are equal partners. Treatment recognizes that there is an emergence of cognition from the complex interpretation of perception, action, and thought.

Learning Disabilities

           The major question for a parent to ask a professional is “If my child sees so good, why does he or she perform so poorly?” The answer may not just be ‘what’ the child sees but rather his or her ability to know ‘where’ things are.

            The following chart is an illustration of the relationship between the ‘where’ system of the brain and the child’s performance in school.