Vision Therapy Helps Children Unlock Their Potential
From overcoming reading disabilities to enhancing studying performance, vision therapy can help.
Overlooking our vision | Cameron McCrodan | TEDxVictoria
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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.
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.
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.
‘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
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
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
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.
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.