The Visual-Spatial Learner

Earlier this year I wrote about visual-spatial learners.  I listed characteristics and 
examples of how visual-spatial learners live in the world.  Any of you who have a gifted 
child who is a visual-spatial learner know that it is exhausting to parent them because 
they rarely turn off the creative flow of energy, even to sleep.  These children often have 
difficulty sleeping, need less sleep, and as young children may stop taking naps years 
before their peers.  Gifted VSLs often view the world as one big resource for exploration 
with visual images all around.  There are just too many things to explore to tire and go to 
sleep, even though they need sleep.  

Once they explore a new topic, they are driven to explore other ways to approach 
the topic.  For example, if the gifted VSL child decides they want to explore dinosaurs, they 
may learn about every dinosaur they can, learn about all the theories of their existence and 
disappearance, stay up late and get up early to make models of dinosaurs and their habitat.   
They dig deeper to further investigate the patterns of eating and migration of dinosaurs, 
and on, and on.  Along with their endless need to explore comes a near total disregard of 
time.  It is not that VSLs do not care about time; they just get so wrapped up in their images 
and explorations that time gets away from them.  When a parent or teacher asks a VSL to 
do a chore when the child is in the middle of an exploration, the child may answer 
affirmative, but not get around to actually doing the chore until hours or days later.  This 
does not bode well for the child in environments where time dictates schedules such as 
school. 

For parents of these children the intensity of their crave for knowledge is demanding and time consuming because the VSL child doesn’t just sit down and read books or research on the Internet.  They must be constantly creating, doing, and making improvements.  What is a parent to do?  Specific routines help the VSL child because it brings predictability to daily life.  Even though VSLs are creative, and may look unorganized, routine and predictability allows them to know what outside stimuli and expectation is coming next.   A visual schedule, rather than a written planner is a necessity.  
​
Many VSLs who are required to use a hand written planner do not just use words to write 
their assignments, they use pictures or images.  I’ve seen some assignment books with 
beautiful artwork simply to express homework assignments and athletic and arts events.  
For time management, when possible, some sort of visual prompt tends to work well, such 
as a sand-filled hourglass.  This provides a clear visual because the child can literally watch 
the passage of time.  The following website provides additional information about the 
visual-spatial learner:  http://www.studygs.net/visual.htm 

Each VSL is different, of course, but as parents we need to learn about the characteristics, strengths and needs of our VSL child.  They are a joy to have, but exhausting to parent.  We need to learn the balance necessary for both the parent and child to thrive.