Association between Visual Perception and Socioeconomic Status in Malaysian Preschool Children: Results from the Test of Visual Perceptual Skills-4

Abstract

Visual perception in children can be evaluated using the Test of Visual Perceptual Skills—4th edition (TVPS-4) with normative data developed for the U.S. population. It is widely used by healthcare practitioners in Malaysia, despite reports that children in Asia outperform their U.S. peers in visual perception assessment. We compared TVPS-4 scores among 72 Malaysian preschool children (mean age: 5.06 ± 0.11 years) with U.S. norms and investigated the association between socioeconomic factors and TVPS-4 scores. Malaysian preschoolers had significantly higher standard scores (116.60 ± 7.16) than the U.S. norms (100 ± 15; p p p = 0.03). The visual sequential memory score could be predicted by the father’s employment status (β = 2.399, p p = 0.007), and low household income (β = −1.430, p < 0.037). In conclusion, Malaysian preschoolers outperformed their U.S. peers in all TVPS-4 subtests. Socioeconomic variables were associated with visual form constancy and visual sequential memory, but not with the other five subtests or TVPS-4’s overall standard scores.

Keywords

• preschool children
• Test of Visual Perception Skills—4th edition (TVPS-4)
• visual perception
• socioeconomic status