Vision Therapy and Learning

If children are struggling with reading they should be taken to see a developmental optometrist who will evaluate the child to determine if the learning problem is in fact a visual problem.

It is essential that a child’s visual system is efficient because two-thirds of all information we receive is visual and 80% of all classroom learning comes through our visual system.  Optometric vision therapy improves vision function and this in turn improves learning ability.

.

A student’s visual skills are employed to perform tasks such as reading and using a computer.  According to the American Optometric Association, vision disorders affect one in every four school-age children.

While many of these patients have refractive errors that can be treated with compensatory lenses, some have additional problems in the functioning of the visual system that are best treated by optometric vision therapy.

Example: Reading

 A deficiency in any one of these areas will cause a child to fall behind.  Fortunately, Vision Therapy has proven effective at treating such deficiencies.

Convergence Insufficiency

According to a study funded by the National Eye Institute in the United States, in-office Vision Therapy is the best treatment for convergence insufficiency, a disorder where the two eyes do not work together in unison the way they are supposed to.  Your child does not need to be held back because of her eyes. 

See an eye doctor.
See for life.

Convergence insufficiency is one of the most common vision disorders that interferes with reading. It was recently the focus of a scientific study in the United States funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Eye Institute - the study found that vision therapy was the best treatment for convergence insufficiency. Convergence insufficiency is a vision problem where the two eyes don't work together in unison the way they are supposed to when one is reading. The result can make reading very difficult.

It is estimated that least one out of every 20 school-age children is impacted by convergence insufficiency.  However, there are other visual abnormalities to be considered. It is estimated that over 60% of problem learners have undiagnosed vision problems contributing to their difficulties.

The good news is the majority of these vision problems can be treated with a program of optometric vision therapy. The study by the NEI found that in-office vision therapy was the best treatment for convergence insufficiency.

The five most common signs that a vision problem may be interfering with your child's abillity to read and learn are:

     1. Skips lines, rereads lines;

     2. Poor reading comprehension;

     3. Takes much longer doing homework than it should take;

     4. Reverses leters like b's into d's when reading; and

     5. Has a short attention span with reading and schoolwork.

Any one of these symptoms is a sign of a possible vision problem.

According to a 1993 study published in the journal, Binocular Vision and Eye Muscle Surgery Quarterly,  Vision Therapy improved reading performance by improving binocular vision function in reading disabled students and had the added benefit of eliminating anesthopic symptoms such as, eye strain, headaches, itchiness, watering, eye strain and fatigue.  The authors recommended vision therapy as a treatment for reading disabled students.  

For information of specific visual disorders that impact learning, please visit our pages dedicated to binocular vision and Visual information processing.

Vision therapy for convergence insufficiency improves academic behaviours as measured by the Academic Behaviors Survery according to a study published in the January 2012 issue of Optometry and Vision Science.  Click here to read more.

A 2010 study published in the journal BMC Ophthalmology by Dusek at al.  found that children with reading difficulties were more likely to have visual problems such as poorer distance visual acuity, an binocular problems such as exophoric deviation at near, a lower amplitude of accommodation, reduced accommodative facility, reduced vergence facility, a reduced near point of convergence, a lower AC/A ratio and a slower reading speed. The study confirmed the importance of a full assessment of binocular visual status in order to detect and remedy these deficits in order to prevent visual problems continuing to impact upon educational development.