Children undergo yearly visual assessments in the school setting that test their eyes acuity or how clearly they are seeing. If they do not have 20/20 vision, they are then referred to an eye doctor to receive a prescription for glasses. However, what these eye tests do not assess are HOW your child’s eyes process, track, and work together on receiving visual input and transporting it to the brain.
As an occupational therapist, I often refer children to other professionals. When I notice that a child is having vision difficulties related to eye movements and coordination or struggling with tasks such as reading or writing and visual perceptual difficulties, I will refer to a behavioral optometrist or developmental optometrist to assess them.
What is a Behavioral Optometrist ?
Instead of looking at the clarity of your vision, a behavioral optometrist specializes in how your eyes and visual system is impacting behavior. They consider demands placed on children such as reading, writing, computers in day to day live in order to make sure they are functioning at sge level. This type of eye doctor will also assess your visual skills such as eye tracking, perception, processing, and motor movements and coordination of the eyes together.
Consider this: When your child goes for an eye appointment, they are testing the acuity or how clear they can see BUT eyesight is so much more than 20/20 vision. There’s also their processing speed, focus, hand-eye coordination, eye movements, and eye teaming or how they move together.
What Will the Behavioral Optometrist Do for My Child?
When your child receives an assessment, the doctor will make a tailored program for them using equipment such as lenses, prisms, computer-assisted visual activities, balance boards, and metronomes. Overall, the goal of therapy is to help the child achieve functional, accurate binocular vision (both eyes together) that cannot be treated through eyeglasses or contact lenses.
What is Vision Therapy?
Vision therapy is
Is There Proof Vision Therapy Works?
There are a lot of motor tasks that may come easily to our children such as crawling (gross motor) or holding a crayon to scribble (fine motor). However, what if something doesn’t come so easily? You find a way to work on their weak core muscle and decreased hand strength with them, right? Either through researching online, going to an OT or PT, etc. But what if your child’s eyes are the part of them having difficulty? Just like we would exercise our body to improve coordination and strength, we can also improve the coordination of our eyes.
There are recent studies which have shown that vision therapy can help correct these visual deficits that can impact efficient reading and writing in school age children. There is something called neuroplasticity, which basically means that the brain is like a lump of clay continually being molded, manipulated, and changed based on what we learn and do every day. Recent studies have found that these neurological changes can occur when a child participates in vision therapy in order to correct vision problems and improve processing.
What is the Goal of Vision Therapy or Training?
- Prevention: Vision therapy can address prevention of eye and visual problems from developing or deteriorating
- Treatment: Therapy can treat visual difficulties that are currently present such as a lazy eye
- Functionality: Visual Therapy aims to improve visual processing needed in the classroom, during play, and in the home environment
What Equipment Might Be Used in Vision Therapy?
- Corrective or prism lenses
- Eye patches
- Metronome
- Balance board
- Computer software
- Electronic training devices
Which Eye Problems Does Vision Therapy Address?
- Lazy Eye (Amblyopia): the eyes have difficulty teaming or working together in synchronism usually due to strabismus resulting in poor visual acuity.
- Strabismus: this is also known as when the eye turns away from center keeping them from being properly aligned when looking at objects close up such as during reading.
- Eye Movement Disorders: Sometimes our brain has difficulty coordinating our eye movements resulting in poor processing speed, difficulty tracking or pursuing objects visually, or focusing the eyes for long. However, vision therapy has proven to be
effective improving accuracy of eye movementsespecially during reading and writing. - Accommodative Disorder: These occur when the eyes have difficulty focusing for a sustained amount of time or switching between near and far.
What Vision Therapy is NOT?
Sometimes there are programs out there on TV or ads that offer “self-help” vision improvement. However, there is not refutable about these programs and should not be entertained. Also, if your child has a learning disability, vision therapy with a behavioral optometrist is not a cure, yet, it is an option to improve their visual skills.
Although Behavioral Optometrists can assist your child in developing these skills, it will ultimately be up to the family and child to implement a home program consistently to improve their visual processing and abilities.
Potential Signs of Vision Problems
Here are some signs you may begin to notice if your child is struggling with their vision:
- Covers or closes one eye when reading or writing
- Moves head frequently when writing or reading
- Misses words when reading or entire lines
- Complains of tired eyes or frequently rubs their eyes during
- Very easily distracted showing poor concentration and difficulty maintaining visual focus
- Reads very slowly with a lot of effort
If you believe your child has vision problems that are not related to the clarity (fixed with eye glasses), then contact your child’s doctor to talk about a referral to a behavioral optometrist. If they have visual perceptual or motor difficulties impacting their handwriting, you can also receive a referral to an occupational therapist to address these issues as well.
If you are searching for a provider in your area, use this search tool to assist you here.
Best,
Sarah