TY - JOUR
T1 - Visual perceptual abilities of Chinese-speaking and English-speaking children
AU - Lai, Mun Yee
AU - Leung, Frederick
PY - 2012/4
Y1 - 2012/4
N2 - 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 mo. 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.
AB - 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 mo. 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.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84861385714&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.2466/10.24.27.PMS.114.2.433-445
DO - 10.2466/10.24.27.PMS.114.2.433-445
M3 - Article
SN - 0031-5125
VL - 114
SP - 433
EP - 445
JO - Perceptual and Motor Skills
JF - Perceptual and Motor Skills
IS - 2
ER -