ABSTRACT
Attention and perception are our information processing tools. They work together – attention works at seeking and sorting sensory information, whilst perception is for making 'sense' of it. Perception works rapidly without conscious thought – as our senses scan around us, information is received and our brain relates it to all our memories of similar experiences, from which we make generalisations of what we are seeing, hearing, feeling, etc., using all of our prior knowledge. Some of the processes that both derive from and build on core knowledge are inherent in actions that occur as part of our everyday lives, but we need to consciously promote them during practical activities and games with special pupils. Perception is part of the general processes of living, but it becomes a particular part of learning mathematics when it is dealing with recognising and differentiating quantities, numerals, shapes and spaces.
