Visual perceptual strengths and weaknesses in adults with intellectual disabilities compared with a birth year-matched norm.
Adults with ID show a clear pattern—good eye-hand and figure-ground, weak categorization and rotated images—that you can plug straight into lesson plans.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team gave the DTVP visual-perception test to adults with intellectual disability. They compared scores to adults born the same year but without ID.
All adults lived in the community, not institutions. The study looked for patterns of strong and weak visual skills.
What they found
Adults with ID scored best on eye-hand coordination and figure-ground tasks. They scored lowest on figural categorization.
Adults with Down syndrome had the same pattern plus extra trouble with mirror and rotated images.
How this fits with other research
Cramm et al. (2009) showed vision loss adds extra disability on top of ID. The new study maps which visual skills are hit hardest, so you know what to screen first.
Wuang et al. (2011) found poor visual organization lowers school participation in kids with Down syndrome. The adult data now show the same weakness persists, linking child scores to later function.
Kiani et al. (2019) found congenital blindness triples autism traits in adults with ID. Together the papers flag two must-check items: visual-perceptual profile and autism screen whenever vision is impaired.
Why it matters
Use the DTVP profile as a quick roadmap: build on strong eye-hand coordination, teach figure-ground tasks with high contrast, and give extra trials for categorization and rotated shapes. If the person has Down syndrome, add mirror-image discrimination drills. Pair this with a vision and autism checklist to catch compounding issues early.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: The ventral and dorsal streams are considered to be the brain substrates of vision for perception and action, respectively. Using the Developmental Test of Visual Perception (DTVP), the current study examined whether visual perceptual strengths and weaknesses in adults with intellectual disabilities (ID) were attributable to the dichotomy of the visual streams. METHOD: In study 1, DTVP performance was compared among mild, moderate and severe adult ID groups; study 2 contrasted adult ID groups with and without Down syndrome (DS). To prevent possible contamination by the Flynn effect, participants were matched by birth year with the norm of the DTVP original edition. RESULTS: Independent of the extent of ID among the three groups in study 1 and the aetiological group difference in study 2, relative strength was found for two DTVP tasks: eye-hand coordination and distinguishing target figures from interference background. Relative weakness was obtained in identifying a figural category. Participants with DS demonstrated exceptional weakness in discerning a target from either mirror-imaged or rotated alternatives, in addition to figural-category detection. CONCLUSIONS: Visual perceptual strengths and weaknesses in persons with ID were difficult to explain on the basis of two visual streams. An interpretation originating in a different research context (e.g. frontal-lobe dysfunction) appears to be required for explaining visual perceptual weaknesses in persons with ID. For persons with DS, strong frontal-lobe dysfunction with atypical lateralisation might be the pathological determinant of visual perceptual weaknesses.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2013 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2011.01516.x