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Listen to the podcast here. Cameron McCrodan gave a Ted Talk about the unknown or often overlooked parts of the visual system. Having over 36,000 views on Youtube, his speech has caught the eye of many adults, parents, students, and professionals, including Dr. Stull and Dr. Edwards. We welcome him...

Listen to the podcast here: On this episode you will learn three things: What is Dyslexia? Diagnosing Dyslexia with an optometrist Understanding how the visual system works. 00:01     About doctor Cameron McCrodan 01:24     Why is Dr. Cameron McCrodan’s message important for you. 02:37     How did Dr Cameron McCrodan transitioned from...

It's back-to-school time, and your child could be struggling because of one of four vision problems that eye exams often don't pick up. 1. Eye tracking: If the eyes don't track properly through text, how would you expect somebody to read well? Take a look at the video on this...

It’s back to school, and back to paying attention.  It’s also often the time of year it’s suggested to parents that they have their child assessed by a psychologist for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or attention deficit disorder (ADD). This generally comes up because a child is having difficulty...

Suffering from vertigo, feeling dizzy, or have a feeling of unsteadiness? Does it get worse with visual stimulus like grocery stores, busy places, flashing lights, patterns, blinds, or watching motion?  It could be related to how your eyes and brain work together.  In many of these cases, but not always,...

“My daughter was diagnosed with Dyslexia.  We had her eyes tested and they said it’s fine. Could tracking be a problem?” This mom writes in with a really common question.  Can vision be part of the dyslexia puzzle?  Well, the answer is yes… and no.  Probably not what you want...

Why will one doctor recommend 10 weeks of vision therapy, and another recommend 25, 30, or 40?  As a person evaluating your options for treatment, it may be difficult to understand why the difference. Most of the time it comes down to your neuro-optometrist’s understanding of vision.  There are a...

So you teach your child a word, then three lines later they can’t recognize the word you just taught them.  Is it a language problem, learning disability, or just not being focused? When you child’s eyes and brain don’t work together, it’s like playing a really bad game of ‘telephone’. ...

Are you an educator or parent concerned about a struggling child? You may have already read the research showing that eye tracking problems can cause problems with reading and learning and even mimic learning disabilities like dyslexia or ADD/ADHD.  Perhaps you’ve already spoke with the parent of a child who...

Are you taking Amitriptyline?  Here are a few things you should know: Amitriptyline is a tricyclic antidepressant that also is prescribed for headaches and migraines.  As with many medications, many side effects are overlooked when prescribed, or when the side effects start, they aren’t thought of as side effects, and...

Wow. I have been struggling with my concussion symptoms for nearly a year. After some test, Dr McCrodan built a pair of prism glasses for me to try on. He asked me to read, something I love to do and have been struggling to do for far too long. I...

Gaslight (verb):  to manipulate someone in to questioning their own sanity. It seems like almost every day I meet someone who has been told that their dizziness, nausea, headaches and other symptoms are psychological.  Sometimes it’s chalked up to depression or anxiety (despite solid research showing that eye movement problems...

Computer screen blue light filters have become a hot topic lately. Especially in relation to headaches or migraines. They are being pushed by everyone from industry insiders to people like Dave Asprey.  It’s hard to buy a pair of glasses without having the person ask if you’d like to pay...

Still struggling with post concussion symptoms? Are you sensitive to screens? Do you get headaches throughout the day? Are you having trouble concentrating on reading or work emails? Do you still have a sense of fogginess? Does your dizziness or nausea still come on worse than before? Sometimes you may...

To be a great soccer player you’d need to have great foot movement.  Why do we so often forget that young readers need to have accurate eye movement?  It’s still too common for educators, doctor’s and parent’s alike to overlook eye movement, or even be stuck in the old dogma...

My son (grade 6 student)  commenced treatment with Dr McCrodan after suffering a serious concussion accident.  He also had been diagnosed with dyslexia and the combination of the concussion accident had left him with no balance, memory loss and a grade 3 reading level speed.  He also found reading music...

Concussion recovery programs are now common in many clinics and hospitals.  Many of these fantastic concussion or neuro-rehab programs are missing one critical component: vision.  According to Johns Hopkins director Dr. Eric Singman, MD PHD: ‘there should be vision specialists dedicated to working with patients who demonstrate deficiencies in eye...

Defn: Dyslexia is a learning difficulty that primarily affects the skills involved in accurate and fluent word reading and spelling. Characteristic features of dyslexia are difficulties in phonological awareness, verbal memory and verbal processing speed.’ – dyslexic.com Dyslexia is diagnosed based on performance on testing that measures the above abilities. If we put a...

Vestibular Migraines? Do you or someone you love suffer from vestibular migraines? If so, there may be triggers and treatments that have not yet been discovered or discussed. Most of the patients that I see who have been diagnosed with vestibular migraines have triggers that are largely visual.  Busy visual environments,...

This is reproduced from the guidelines published by St. Joseph’s and Fowler Kennedy: POST-CONCUSSION SYNDROME MANAGEMENT GUIDELINES INTRODUCTION The most recent Consensus Statement on Concussion in Sport has defined a concussion as a“complex pathophysiological process affecting the brain, induced by traumatic biomechanicalforces”. Concussions can be caused by a blow to...

What if our current thinking on Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) is completely overlooking something so obvious? Let’s look at the logic and language involved with the diagnosis.  Think critically, and you may find a solution. Developmental– concerned with the development of someone or something. Coordination: the organization of the different elements of...

Why does one glasses prescription stop your headaches and migraines, while the other just lets you see clearly? Have you seen someone cry when they put on their glasses because the world no longer moves?  Or met a person whose glasses allowed them to get back to work and earn...

Opto-Mization Neurovisual Performance Matthew Olson was described by the school assessment team as in need of yearly IEP’s due to his learning disability in Grade 2. In Grade 3 he continued to struggle with reading. We had yearly eye exams and the optometrist found nothing wrong with his vision. Through...

Literally see the world in a different way Dear Dr. McCrodan, The improvements to my vision, headaches, quality of life and professional performance achieved through the diagnosis and treatment provided by your team and you at McCrodan Vision has been life changing. When I arrived at McCrodan Vision my symptoms...

Two years ago I became unwell.  It started as dizziness and progressed very rapidly to a host of symptoms including nausea, crippling headaches, disorientation, stuttering, vertigo, and complete exhaustion.  I spent a fair amount of time in doctors’ offices, with neurologists, in hospital, and undergoing a battery of tests.  After...

As you are reading this text, your brain is controlling how the incoming information is processed, and how your eyes track, coordinate, and focus.  Post Trauma Vision Syndrome refers to deficits in these areas after a concussion, head-injury, whiplash, or mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI).  If you have PTVS and...

In this day and age we are all looking for a quick fix, or hope to be able to offer one. I’m reminded of a wise friend telling me of what his mentor said. “I can teach your child to beat a test in a few weeks, but to gain...

4 months ago a young girl walked into our office, unable to stand without two hands braced on anything, and had to walk by hanging on to her mother. She had missed 5 months of school, and nobody had been able to figure out why she was so dizzy and...

Since a very young age Jared has struggled with anxiety, behavioural issues and a lack of physical coordination. He comes across to others as very shy or rude as he would not speak to adults or other classmates and avoids eye contact. He hardly engaged with other kids and would...

Happy Monday! Many children with convergence insufficiency and other binocular vision disorders display symptoms identical to ADHD.  Since ADHD is a diagnosis of exclusion (meaning everything else needs to be ruled out), it’s important to look for anything that could be causing the troubles.  For example, does the child drink...

Concussions often affect how the eyes work, resulting in difficulty returning to work or school. Congrats to Alex and his family for their hard work with his vision therapy (neuro-visual rehab). The week after initially seeing Alex I saw a young girl with identical vision problems post concussion. At a...

Here is your feel-good Friday post.  This was copied to me by a mom of a wonderful young girl who has now just blossomed after going through vision therapy to treat the vision problems that were holding her back in school.   “I’ve spent a lot of time trying to...

A testimonial from a grateful patient. In February 2015 I suffered a serious concussion that left me disoriented, nauseous, dizzy and exhausted. I was unable to work at my job as an editor. I went from working 12-hour days to lying on the couch with my eyes covered for weeks....

Question: I have a ten year old daughter with Dyslexia, would vision therapy be applicable to her? – S. Hi S, Thank you for the inquiry. The long and short of it is that vision therapy can only help with dyslexia symptoms if there are deficits in visual function (how...

It takes a lot of bravery to share a story of difficulties with reading, writing and academics.  It takes even more bravery to make this story public, but Helena told me that it’s all worth it if she can prevent even one other child from struggling the way that she did....

One of the newest measurements of an athlete’s status after a hit in sports is if they can perform the same on an eye tracking test as pre-season. If they can’t, they are pulled from the game. When I was in high school my younger sister sustained a concussion. Her...

The Times Colonist published a fantastic article today discussing how vision problems can mimic ADHD.  Early in my career I worked a lot with Dr. Quaid in Ontario, and he was one of the people that ignited my interest in developmental optometry and dealing with eye-teaming disorders.  To see an...

The New York Times recently published an excellent article talking about sports vision training.  An athlete’s swing is only as accurate as where his brain has calculated the baseball to be.  This also holds true for catching balls, or even where a basketball player judges the hoop to be. Computer driven...

Could Vision Problems Cause an Attention Deficit Disorder Diagnosis? There are two points that will help here: 1.  Attention deficit disorder is a diagnosis of exclusion.  There is no specific test for it, as it is simply a collection of behavioural symptoms.  As a diagnosis of exclusion, all other causes...

Overlooked: Are Unseen Visual Deficits Causing Your Child Trouble at School? Meet Austin. At 6 years old and half way through grade one, he was unable to read, struggling to form his letters properly, and miserable at school. He would hide under his desk at school, and was unable to...

I used to think I didn’t like to read because I was stupid. Now I realize it was a problem with how my eyes work. After years of crying every single day before school, this is the first year he said during the summer he is excited to return. Every...