The Development And Influencing Factors Of Visual-motor Integration In Handwriting Readiness

As the ability to coordinate visual perception and fine motor,visual-motor integration is an important part of children's handwriting readiness.Handwriting is an assembled skill,dependent on the integrated functioning of perceptual,motor abilities.For Chinese children,the handwriting readiness of Chinese characters is more difficult than that of alphabetic characters.Therefore,the effective development of visual-motor integration skill is an inevitable requirement for Chinese children.Based on Newell's triangle constraints model,the current study explored the developmental characteristics and some constraint factors of preschool children's visual-motor integration.The research contents are divided into three parts.The first part is about the developmental characteristics of preschool children's visual-motor integration ability and their individual constraints,including age,gender,visual perception and fine motor skills.The second part penetrates into the macroscopic environment constraint layer and compares the effect of teaching environments on visual-motor integration.The third part focuses on the microscopic task constraint layer,comparing the effects of task rules on the eye movement characteristics in visual-motor integration.The results are shown as follows:1.The visual-motor integration ability of preschool children increases with age,and the age of 3-4 years is the rapid development period of visual motor integration.During the preschool stage,children's visual perception is basically in a steady state,while fine motor skill has been in a period of rapid development.However,during the first grade of primaryschool,children's visual perception develops rapidly,while their fine motor skill is basically in a state of stagnation.In addition,gender affect children's visual motor integration,fine motor ability and the speed of visual perception.Specifically,the girls' performance is better than boys'.Follow-up studies have shown that the visual perception skill of preschool children can significantly predict visual-motor integration.2.The early extracurricular teaching environment did not significantly affect children's visual-motor integration,but promoted children's visual perception and fine motor skills.Compared with the control group,the children who received both handwriting and drawing exercises performed better in visual perception and fine motor skills.There was no significant difference in visual perception and fine motor ability between the children who only received painting practice and the control group.Compared with children who only received painting practice,the children both practiced writing and drawing performed better in fine motor coordination.However,there was no significant difference in visual perception between the two groups.3.The stages and rules in task constraint both affect children's visual cognitive processing.Compared with the information gathering stage before copying,children need more fixation time and times during the execution of copying.In addition,compared with the counterclockwise task,children need more fixation time and gaze times during the clockwise copying task.Conclusion: the development rate of visual-motor integration changes from fast to slow,and the development rates of visual perception and fine motor exist "compensatory effect"."Plateau phenomenon" of fine motor skills occurs when preschool children enter the first grade of primary school.Girls are superior to boys in the development levels of both visual-motor integration and fine motor and the development rate of visual perception.The development of visual-motor integration during the handwriting readiness is influenced from individual,environmental and task constraints.