The Link Between Learning and Eyesight
Vision Therapy, also called Vision Training or Orthoptics, is a field of eye care that confuses many parents. Our optometrists are often asked by our Vaughan eye care patients: What is it? What can it treat? As your leading center for vision therapy near you, we’ve prepared the following answers to these important questions:
What is the goal of vision therapy?
Vision relies on much more than having 20/20 visual acuity. Even if your child passes a school vision screening with top scores, he or she can still have a vision condition that requires treatment. In fact, even if your child already wears vision correction – eyeglasses or contact lenses – for nearsightedness, farsightedness, or astigmatism, other ocular problems could still be present. When left untreated, these disorders can severely jeopardize learning in the classroom and performance on the sports field.
Examples of disorders that vision therapy can treat include:
- Trouble with binocularity (weak eye teaming)
- Convergence insufficiency
- Convergence excess
- Poor eye-hand coordination
- Difficulty with accommodation (focusing)
What are some vision-related learning problems?
The perfect example of learning that relies heavily upon visual skills is reading. In fact, according to the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD), studies show that many kids between age 9-13 who have a hard time learning to read suffer from a vision disorder. Sadly, many of these kids are misdiagnosed with other conditions, such as ADD/ADHD, when a course of vision therapy may really be the best treatment!
Look at how visual skills help with learning:
- Eye mobility enables your child’s eyes to scan across a printed page
- Accommodation is responsible for switching focus from near to far, such as when copying information from a classroom board
- Binocularity is necessary for eyes to converge for reading and depth perception
- Eye-hand coordination is critical for copying information, good handwriting, and playing sports
- Visual perception facilitates the proper comprehension of visual images
What happens in a vision therapy session?
In order to determine whether or not your child needs vision therapy, our eye doctor will perform a thorough eye exam. If we detect a problem, our vision therapists will then customize sessions to target the individual’s specific condition. These sessions help to prevent and resolve many learning difficulties that can be caused by a vision disorder.
Each session is about 45 minutes long, and we will utilize various instruments that are made specially for vision therapy – such as wands, prisms, balls on a string, lenses, and customized charts. All of these exercises and techniques strengthen different parts of the brain that are involved with the visual system.
We will provide exercises that must be done regularly at home. The success of vision therapy depends largely upon cooperation between eye doctor and patient, in addition to parental encouragement and support. When kids attend our vision therapy sessions and are committed to doing their homework, improvement is typically noticed after a few months.
Vision Therapy Near Me, for Vaughan, ON
You need to find a vision therapist who is convenient and easy to access, because regular appointments are essential for the success of treatment. We are happy to offer a full-service vision therapy clinic near you, staffed with compassionate and professional specialists.
Vision therapy maximizes sight – in order to optimize learning!
Directions from Vaughan to Bolton Optometry Clinic:
