▶Hello, dear friends, once again thank you all for visiting this space where we share experiences and learning opportunities on a weekly basis. Especially the learning of the youngest children, which is what occupies a large part of my personal and professional curriculum. Therefore, continuing with the reading process, the topic of visual attention is fundamental.

▶Undoubtedly, in order to read we need to look at the letters printed on the paper; and not only that, we need our eyes to scan the words and lines in a dual synchrony, so that the act of reading flows properly. We know that autistic children have outstanding visual skills; however, attention is not one of their strengths.

▶Attention, as a cognitive skill, is a central part of executive functions and is not a single dimension; on the contrary, it is a quality that moves towards different areas of the child's development, helping to consolidate learning. Hence the importance of enhancing it in the reading process.

Visual attention is the ability to look at something or when the eyes are fixed on an object or target in the environment. Visual attention is a prerequisite for visual recognition.
Visual attention

An adequate development of visual attention in the act of reading will not only allow the recognition of letters; but also the understanding of what is read, because the eyes will have the ability to move attentively over the words without losing the thread of the reading.

▶From experience I know that autistic children have a different kind of visual strength that allows them to appropriate properties of materials, images, diagrams, maps, illustrated sequences... However, I have also been able to realize that their attention levels, in general, are not adequate; that is, they fluctuate, they do not adjust to the characteristics of the task. Hence the need to work on visual attention.

▶When a child does not have a strong coordination of patterns that involve sight, for example, vosimotor coordination for writing; prehension-vision coordination for handling all types of objects; coordination to attend to environmental stimuli, involving sight towards the source, learning is not properly consolidated.

▶In general, when there are interferences in attending to the learning objective, we will have important failures that become more acute over time, leaving gaps that are later difficult to equate with a leveled learning, not only to the grade, but to the competencies required by the moment of the child's development. Therefore, it is necessary that we pay attention to these details and that we keep ourselves informed about the new findings on the reading process.

En general, cuando presenta interferencias para atender a al objeto de aprendizaje, tendremos importantes fallas que se agudizan con el tiempo, dejando vacíos que posteriormente son difíciles de equiparar con un aprendizaje nivelado, no sólo al grado, sino a las competencias que exige el momento de desarrollo del niño. Por ello es preciso que pongamos nuestra atención a estos detalles y que nos mantengamos informados sobre los nuevos hallazgos sobre el proceso lector.

▶I have had the opportunity to mention, in this column, some sources from researchers who are currently making progress in improving children's learning. Regarding the reading process and visual attention, there is an interesting proposal by Stanislas Dehaene in his book El Cerebro Lector where he addresses in a very insightful way visual attention and everything that involves the management of sight and eye movements to improve the reading process.

▶Some activities to stimulate visual attention in children with autism.

Visual and concrete material, due to its characteristics, is very good for autistic children. It is important to have eye-catching resources, with colors, textures and movement, since these qualities largely guarantee the quality of attention that children pay to activities. That is why activities such as making and copying models with building blocks; putting together puzzles; reading stories with sounds and textures; games of I spy and looking for incognito characters; looking for similarities, differences and the same; mazes; following sequences of strokes. Among other activities that involve visual sequences that must be maintained from the beginning to the end of the activity.

▶Here are some links to visual attention activities that I have worked with:
Visual tracking, Visual attention and perception, Visual attention and Visual attention and tracking activities.

▶I hope you found this information interesting and, above all, useful. If you like, help us by sharing. Greetings and until the next opportunity, in this column on Psychopedagogical Perspectives..