The comparison of outdoor and indoor play on Visual perception and IQ of preschool children

Play is one of the most needed stimuli for children and it has a huge share of the child's identity and experiences. The purpose of this study was to compare the play in different environments (natural and indoor spaces) on visual perception skills and IQ of preschool children.This study was a causal-comparative study conducted in the field. The statistical population consisted of 4-6 year old children in Tabriz city. The sample consisted of two groups of 30 people who were purposefully selected as the sample. Frostig test was used to assess perceptual-visual skills and Goodenoough’s cognitive skill test was used to measure IQ. Data were analyzed using independent t-test and multivariate analysis of variance in SPSS software at the significant level of 0.05.The results show that there was a significant difference between the two groups in the overall children's visual perception (P = 0.0001) and among the subscales of visual perception, eye motor coordination (P = 0.0001), figure-ground (P = 0.003), position in space (0.003), special relationships (p = 0.004) and also in intelligence (p = 0.001). The scores of children playing naturally outdoors were higher than those of children playing indoors.The type of environment in which children work affects their growth. The natural environment is a rich of stimulus that has a significant impact on children's development. Therefore, it is suggested that children become more active in natural as outdoor spaces at childhood to improve their visual perception skills and increase their intelligence.