"I didn't know what I was supposed to do"

Ellen is in the 11th grade and has difficulty in the area of visual processing. In Chemistry Ellen is often frustrated. She received these two assignments. One was a practice worksheet and the other was the quiz to assess mastery of the same skill (identifying covalent compounds):

Ellen became so frustrated by the worksheet (the maze) that she ended up copying from another student. When it came to the quiz she got a 24%. The teacher showed Ellen the worksheet and the quiz and asked: "Ellen, you got everything right on the worksheet, why did you do so terribly on the quiz?" Ellen's response is classic:

"I didn't know what I was supposed to do."

The Truth: Ellen is not alone. Many students often do not know what a task/worksheet/assessment is asking them to do simply because of the formatting. Oftentimes students give up by either copying off others or guessing because the format of the page is inaccessible to them. When Ellen first received this worksheet she was thinking:
-Why are there so many boxes?
-How do I know where to go after the start box?
-Why do I put my name on the side?
-Do I go up or down?
-Where do I put the formula it's asking me for?
And so on...
Ellen spends so much mental energy on simply processing the layout of the assignment, that she is unable to learn a new skill and even once it is learned, show mastery of that skill. Ellen, like so many students with visual processing difficulties, get lost in the visual details. 

What I Suggest: Students like Ellen need: visual continuity between assignments of the same skills, and less clutter on the page to show mastery of learned skills. We need to make the main ideas and the details of each assignment clear to students who struggle to process visual information. Speaking with your child's teacher about overly cluttered and visually complicated assignments is a must for your child to get the same opportunity to show mastery as students without visual processing difficulties.

Some suggestions you can provide to teachers to support visual continuity are:

• Always use the same font and font size on all assignments/assessments.
• Always put the same header on the page, no matter what the assignment/assessment is.

Example:

• Always put the directions in the same place, and identify them as separate from the questions themselves by italicizing, bolding, or boxing them.

Example:

• Always line up information linearly. Students should be able to complete the assignment/assessment in the same order in which they read (left to right, and from one line to the next).
• Limit the use of visuals, and make sure the visuals are aligned linearly on the page so they are easily identifiable. 

Reply to this post with samples of visually cluttered assignments/tasks that need to be visually accommodated for your child.