Visual perceptual abilities of Chinese-speaking and English-speaking children

Visual perceptual abilities of Chinese-speaking and English-speaking children

• Lai, Mun Yee Charles Sturt University
• Leung, Frederick Koon Shing University of Hong Kong

Perceptual and Motor Skills, 114(2), 433-445, 2012

Ammons Scientific Ltd.

2012

• C Psychology & Learning
  • CD Intelligence
• A Human Growth & Development
  • AE Socioeconomic & Cultural Differences, Class & Family Background

Developmental Coordination Disorder Motor Dissociation American-Children Japanese Characters Memory Skills Integration Language Words Psychology

• Hong Kong
• Australia

• 1997.7 onwards

• Pre-Primary Education

This paper reports an investigation of Chinese-speaking and English-speaking children's general visual perceptual abilities. The Developmental Test of Visual Perception was administered to 41 native Chinese-speaking children of mean age 5 yr. 4 mo. in Hong Kong and 35 English-speaking children of mean age 5 yr. 2 in. in Melbourne. Of interest were the two interrelated components of visual perceptual abilities, namely, motor-reduced visual perceptual and visual-motor integration perceptual abilities, which require either verbal or motoric responses in completing visual tasks. Chinese-speaking children significantly outperformed the English-speaking children on general visual perceptual abilities. When comparing the results of each of the two different components, the Chinese-speaking students' performance on visual-motor integration was far better than that of their counterparts (ES = 2.70), while the two groups of students performed similarly on motor-reduced visual perceptual abilities. Cultural factors such as written language format may be contributing to the enhanced performance of Chinese-speaking children's visual-motor integration abilities, but there may be validity questions in the Chinese version.
[Copyright of Perceptual and Motor Skills is the property of Ammons Scientific Ltd. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.2466/10.24.27.PMS.114.2.433-445]

• English

Journal Articles

• 00315125

• 10.2466/10.24.27.PMS.114.2.433-445

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/708b9a6d

2014-06-30