The Developmental Test of Visual Perception—Third Edition (DTVP-3): A Review, Critique, and Practice Implications

Association between Visual Perception and Socioeconomic Status in Malaysian Preschool Children: Results from the Test of Visual Perceptual Skills-4

Visual perception in children can be evaluated using the Test of Visual Perceptual Skills-4th edition (TVPS-4) with normative data developed for the U.S. population. It is widely used by healthcare practitioners in Malaysia, despite reports that children in Asia outperform their U.S. peers in visual perception assessment. We compared TVPS-4 scores among 72 Malaysian preschool children (mean age: 5.06 ± 0.11 years) with U.S. norms and investigated the association between socioeconomic factors and TVPS-4 scores. Malaysian preschoolers had significantly higher standard scores (116.60 ± 7.16) than the U.S. norms (100 ± 15; p < 0.001). They also had significantly higher scaled scores (between 12.57 ± 2.10 and 13.89 ± 2.54) than the U.S. norms (10 ± 3, all p < 0.001) for all subtests. Multiple linear regression analyses revealed that socioeconomic variables were not significant predictors for five visual perception subtests and the overall standard score. The visual form constancy score could be predicted by ethnicity (β = -1.874, p = 0.03). The visual sequential memory score could be predicted by the father's employment status (β = 2.399, p < 0.001), mother's employment status (β = 1.303, p = 0.007), and low household income (β = -1.430, p < 0.037). In conclusion, Malaysian preschoolers outperformed their U.S. peers in all TVPS-4 subtests. Socioeconomic variables were associated with visual form constancy and visual sequential memory, but not with the other five subtests or TVPS-4's overall standard scores.

Visual-perceptual function of children using the developmental test of visual perception-3

Clinical relevance: The development of region-specific norms for the Developmental Test of Visual Perception, third edition (DTVP-3), from a group of children from South India will contribute to the assessment of visual-perceptual skills in children.Background: Visual-perceptual skills are crucial for children to understand their environment, perform activities of daily living, and cope with their learning environment. These perceptual skills also influence children's behavioural characteristics. Well-constructed, norm-referenced standardised tools are vital for assessing visual-perceptual skills. Since ethnicity and cultural background may influence the performance of perceptual tasks, the proposed norms for any assessment tool need to be validated for specific populations. Hence, the current study aimed to develop norms in the Indian context for the Developmental Test of Visual Perception, third edition (DTVP-3), and compare the obtained norms with the norms established in the United States of America.Methods: One hundred and thirty-seven healthy children (mean age: 9.5 ± 1.7 years, range: 7-12 years, 67 females) participated in the study. Visual-perceptual functions including eye-hand coordination, copying, figure-ground, visual closure, and form constancy, were assessed and compared with age-matched norms provided in the test manual. Internal consistency of DTVP-3 was evaluated using Cronbach's Alpha correlation coefficients.Results: Significant differences were observed between the study groups and the given norms for assessment of the abilities of eye-hand coordination, copying skills and visual figure-ground (p < 0.05). No significant difference was found for visual closure and form constancy subtests. Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the five subtests ranged from 0.70 to 0.91 while the composite indexes had coefficients from 0.90 to 0.93.Conclusion: The DTVP-3 showed acceptable limits of internal consistency when tested in a group of children from South India. Region-specific norms need to be used for each of the subtests.

Pre-schoolers' visual perception and attention networks influencing naming speed: An individual difference perspective

Naming speed is considered to be one of the essential components used to predict reading capacity in school. The current study examined how visual perception and attention networks influence naming speed, and analyzed the relationship between visual perception and attention networks. The total number of participants was 163 Thai preschool children between the ages of five and seven years selected through multistage random sampling. Visual perception, attention networks, and naming speed were assessed using the Developmental Test of Visual Perception 3 (DTVP-3), Attention Network Task (ANT), and Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN), respectively. Structural equation modeling was used to test naming speed hypotheses. The hypothesis of a causal model was supported by the evidence generated by this study. A direct positive association between both visual perception and attention networks to naming speed was observed. Compared with attention networks, visual perception had a higher significant effect on naming speed performance. Consequently, children who have higher visual perception are more likely to demonstrate a better naming speed performance. These results indicate that visual perception is strongly urged to naming speed, as doing so can help predict children's reading readiness before they start learning to read.