Visual Motor Learning
What did they actually learn?
Teaching someone a new skill can be surprisingly complicated. A child may complete a task successfully when a parent is nearby, follow a visual schedule when someone reminds them to check it, or communicate appropriately when an adult provides the right prompt. These are meaningful accomplishments, but they raise another question: What has the learner actually understood about the situation?
Visual Motor Learning (VML) encourages us to look closely at the relationship between what we teach, what the learner experiences, and what the learner recognizes and uses afterward. It is not simply about completing a task correctly. It is about helping learning become meaningful and useful in everyday life.
The six movements
A flexible way of examining and organizing teaching.
These movements are not rigid stages or a formula that every learner must follow in sequence. They offer a way to examine teaching, identify what may be missing, and better understand what the learner is actually taking away from an experience.
Connection → Challenge → Replacement → Success → Practice → Identity
- 01
Connection
Connection begins with what the learner can recognize and access. Teaching becomes more meaningful when it builds on familiar people, activities, situations, interests, or information that already matter to the learner. Connection is not simply about making an activity enjoyable. It is about establishing a recognizable relationship between the learner and what is being taught.
- 02
Challenge
Challenge identifies a manageable opportunity for learning. It involves recognizing the difference between what the learner currently understands or does and what they are being supported to learn. The challenge should create an opportunity for growth without unnecessarily producing distress, confusion, or failure.
- 03
Replacement
Replacement introduces a useful action, response, communication method, or decision that helps the learner navigate a situation more effectively. Sometimes this involves replacing challenging behavior with functional communication. At other times, it means developing a skill or response that is missing, inconsistent, or dependent on another person's direction.
- 04
Success
Success involves making the new response useful and meaningful to the learner. The outcome should help establish why the action matters in the situation. Praise and rewards may play a role, but successful teaching also considers whether the learner experiences a practical and relevant result.
- 05
Practice
Practice provides opportunities to recognize and use learning beyond the original teaching situation. This may involve different people, places, materials, routines, or circumstances. Repetition can be valuable, but the larger goal is to help the learner recognize when and how the skill is useful.
- 06
Identity
Identity refers to the learner's growing ownership and use of what has been learned. A skill becomes more meaningful when the learner begins recognizing opportunities to use it without depending on another person to direct every step. This does not mean changing someone's personality, measuring their worth by independence, or eliminating useful supports. Communication devices, visual schedules, reminders, accommodations, and assistance may remain important parts of successful independent functioning.
The Books Coming Soon