Abstract:
In the assessment of general visual-perceptual abilities, there are two schools of thought. The first maintains that perceptual and motor abilities are interdependent and perceptual abilities are reflected in motor responses (Leonard, Foxcroft & Kroukamp, 1988). Another body of research argues that visual perception and motor development are autonomous systems in visual-perceptual abilities. (Bortner & Birch, 1960; Bortner & Birch, 1962; Rosenblith, 1965; Colarusso & Hammill, 1995). The study reported here investigated the possible relationship between motor-reduced visual perceptual abilities and visual-motor integration abilities in Chinese learning children and English learning children by employing the Developmental Test of Visual Perception, 2nd Edition (Hammill, Pearson & Voress, 1993), in which both abilities could be measured in a single test. A total of 41 mainstream native Chinese learning and 35 mainstream native English learning Australian children of age 5 participated in this study. The findings indicated that the Chinese learning children scored much higher marks in the visual-motor integration skills than the motor-reduced visual perceptual skills while English learning children performed comparably in both skills. The results of the Chinese learning children disproved a well established knowledge of the prior development of motor-reduced visual perceptual skills to that of visual-motor integration skills. The paper suggests that these findings can to some extend be accounted for by the psychogeometric theory of Chinese character-writing.