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Vision Therapy Helps Children Unlock Their Potential


From overcoming reading disabilities to enhancing studying performance, vision therapy can help.

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Overlooking our vision | Cameron McCrodan | TEDxVictoria

Click here to watch Dr Cameron on Youtube

Reading

Up to 80% of struggling readers are lacking visual skills. If the eyes can’t track accurately through the text, reading becomes difficult. These problems can mimic other learning disabilities.

Attention

If the eyes don’t work well together, it takes more energy to try to stay focused. It’s like trying to ride a bike with flat tires. These vision problems cause 7 of the 9 symptoms of attention deficit disorder.

7 of the 9 symptoms of attention deficit disorder can be caused by a vision problem
7 of the 9 symptoms of attention deficit disorder can be caused by a vision problem
Writing

Does your child produce messy writing with bad spacing? Vision problems can cause writing to be muddled with unequal spacing, reversed letters, or slow output. It is also a leading cause of challenges copying off the board.

Spelling

‘Fonetik‘ spelling? If a child doesn’t have good visual memory abilities, spelling will often be phonetic or random. Less than 50% of the English language is phonetic so visual memory skills are a must.

These Vision Skills That Are Necessary For Reading

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Eye Tracking

If your eyes don’t track accurately, the information on the page will get mixed up. When it’s bad enough, a child may not even recognize the same word three lines later.

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Accommodation

Your brain controls how accurately your eyes focus on the page. Problems with accommodation can cause blurry vision, headaches, difficulty with concentration and more.

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Eye Teaming

For focus and attention, your eyes need to work together efficiently. Problems like convergence insufficiency can cause headaches, migraines, difficulty with computer screens and more.

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Visual Processing

Your brain needs to accurately decode your vision. This includes things like visual memory for spelling and directionality for understanding letter reversals.

80% of struggling readers lack one or more visual skills
Vision Problems Can Look Like:

Attention Deficit Disorder

Children with ADHD who also had eye teaming problems were found to score lower on the ADHD testing once the eye teaming problems were treated. 7 of the 9 symptoms are the same.

Dyslexia

If the information does not make it accurately from the page to the brain, it will cause problems learning the written language. Too often testing assumes that vision is working properly, and diagnoses a problem higher up the chain.

Reading and learning boy in blue writing
Down syndrome child wearing glasses

Developmental Coordination Disorder

Developing accurate coordination requires accurate coordinates. If you didn’t know where to go on a map, it would be hard to get there.

Learning Disabilities

If the brain doesn’t take in or process vision accurately, it can cause difficulties in learning ranging from mild to severe. In the process of diagnosing a learning disability, these visual functions are often overlooked.

7 of the 9 symptoms of attention deficit disorder can be caused by a vision problem

If you were trying to ride a bike with flat tires, wouldn’t you have trouble keeping the bike moving smoothly? If a child’s eyes don’t work efficiently and it requires a lot more energy to try to read or stay focused, they will give up sooner or avoid doing it. Studies have shown that treating these vision problems (if present) reduces attention deficit disorder symptoms.

‘In an open trial, attention and internalizing problems improved significantly following treatment for CI (Convergence Insufficiency).’ Behavioral and Emotional Problems Associated With Convergence Insufficiency in Children: An Open Trial.

Borsting E1, Mitchell GL2, Arnold LE2, Scheiman M3, Chase C4, Kulp M2, Cotter S5; CITT-RS Group. J Atten Disord. 2016 Oct;20(10):836-44. doi: 10.1177/1087054713511528. Epub 2013 Nov 22

7 of the 9 symptoms of attention deficit disorder can be caused by a vision problem

Writing Requires Fine Visual-Motor Skills

The fine motor coordination required for writing needs finely tuned visual coordinates. If your child is struggling with writing, they could have undiagnosed vision problems.

Signs of a vision causing problems with writing:

  • reversed letters
  • unequal spacing
  • difficulty copying off the board
  • reduced writing output
  • poor spelling
This boy's writing changed dramatically after vision therapy. His hockey improved, his reading soared, and most importantly he believed he was smart.

Test 1: This boy’s writing changed dramatically after vision therapy. His hockey improved, his reading soared, and most importantly he believed he was smart.

Test 2: This 8-year-old boy’s writing changed dramatically with treatment.

Little girl reading pile of books. Isolated.
Spelling Requires Visual Memory

Phonetic tactics get fonetik results. Did you notice the spelling error? What did you say to yourself? It’s not that it sounded wrong; it looked wrong. If a child relies on phonics to spell, you will get the 'fonetic' version of the words they are trying to spell.

More than half of the English language doesn’t follow the phonetic rules. Parents are amazed when a child can all of a sudden ace their spelling tests, and spell a word like pneumonia forwards and backward, all by utilizing their visual memory.

What Needs To Be Tested If Your Child Is Struggling?
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Eye Tracking

If your child cannot accurately move their eyes through the text, they won’t get the right information from the page.

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Eye Teaming

Your child’s eyes need to be able to work together. Problems with how the eyes work together (binocular dysfunction) can cause problems with reading and attention.

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Eye Focusing

Your child’s eyes need to be able to focus and hold the focus on the page, as well as easily shift back and forth from the page to the board.

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Eye Processing

Problems with visual processing can lead to letter reversals such as ‘b’ and ‘d’, as well as trouble with writing, spelling and more.