Poster #156 - A process-oriented approach to visual-motor integration: Head-mounted eye-tracking during the Beery VMI

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Integrative Statement

Introduction
Visual-motor integration is an integral component of many adaptive behaviors in activities of daily living and has been linked to school readiness (Cameron et al., 2016). In young school-age children, visual-motor integration is typically assessed with the Beery-Buktenica Developmental Test of Visual Motor Integration (Beery VMI), a standardized instrument that measures children’s ability to copy increasingly complex two-dimensional forms. The Beery VMI is scored based on children’s final written product but does not directly measure the process of visual-motor integration that underlies children’s form copying. Here, we offer a new way of directly assessing visual-motor integration in real time on the Beery VMI. We demonstrate how head-mounted eye-tracking technology for young children can be used to describe the dynamics of visual-motor integration when children copy forms. We investigated the effect of stimulus complexity on visual-motor integration as children copied the Beery VMI forms.
Method
Typically developing kindergarten children (N=20) wore a head-mounted eye-tracker while completing the Beery VMI (Figure 1). Traditionally, in the Beery VMI, participants are scored only on accuracy (0/1 for each item). In this study, we measured the number of fixations children made to each Beery VMI stimulus in two phases of copying. Fixations made before writing are hypothesized to show when children gather information about the stimulus and fixations made during writing show when children interrupt their writing to re-gather information about the stimulus. Interrater reliability for number of fixations was excellent (ICC=.991, 95% CI = 0.987 to 0.994, p<.001).
Results
A generalized mixed effects model was used to examine the number of fixations children made during each trial of the Beery VMI. Controlling for age, Beery VMI, Beery Visual Perception, and Beery Motor Coordination standard scores, this analysis found a main effect of writing phase (χ1=275.50, p<.001, b=-3.30, SE=0.20) which was qualified by a Trial X Phase (χ1=177.92, p<.001, b=0.29, SE=0.02) interaction. Children made a similar number of fixations to each Beery VMI stimulus before they began copying, but as stimulus complexity increased, they made more re-fixations to the stimulus during copying (Figure 2). This finding suggests that although children may successfully copy Beery VMI stimuli, there can be meaningful differences in visual-motor integration as they do so.
Discussion
Collectively, these findings illustrate how advances in technology can provide a more fine-grained assessment of visual-motor integration in young children. Our process-oriented methods highlight substantial differences in visual-motor integration performance that are not captured by traditional assessments. A successful score on the Beery VMI trial may be associated with different processing costs. In the classroom, these costs may impede learning. Children who must expend maximum cognitive resources to copy material written on a board or workbook may be less capable of engaging the material in more advanced symbolic or conceptual ways. We propose that these methods could be used by practitioners to provide more fine-grained assessments of visual-motor integration as children learn to write.

Authors

• Nicholas E Fears, Tulane University
  Presenting Author

• Brooke C Bailey, Case Western Reserve University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Blair Youmans, Tulane University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jeffrey J. Lockman, Tulane University
  Non-Presenting Author