VISION AND LEARNING BEYOND 20/20

Linda Dejmek, Developmental Optometrist at ABSee Vision Therapy Center, discussed how about 10 million children under the age of 12 have vision problems which make it hard to cope with school and home.  About 20% of all students have vision problems affecting reading and learning. Sight is the ability to see, to look at an object and have it in focus.  Vision is the ability to understand what is seen.  It is how we form our perception of the world and what is happening around us.  There are a number of developmental vision problems such as eye tracking, eye teaming/coordination, eye focusing, processing peripheral and central vision, crossed or wandering eye, lazy eye and eye/hand coordination.  Sometimes children who have trouble in school have undetected vision problems.  Some of the symptoms of vision problems include complaints of headaches, burning eyes, nausea, words moving on a page, double vision, short attention and easily fatigued; low reading comprehension (skips or omits words, loses place, confuses words, moves head and needs finger to keep place reading); and writing difficulties (writes up or downhill, words poorly spaced or crooked and confuses right and left). 

Visual skills are important for learning.  Eye tracking includes fixation and pursuits.  Fixation is the ability to point the eyes at a target and voluntarily keep them on the target.  Without the ability to fixate, a child can become easily distracted and have a hard time concentrating.  Pursuits is the ability to smoothly and accurately move the eyes while following or locating an object.  Eye focusing is the ability to focus the eyes to see up close, change focus from distance to near and maintain clear focus for an extended period of time.  If a child is unable to focus, they may be unable to concentrate on reading for a long period of time, show frustration/anger and want to quit or give up.  Eye teaming is the ability of both eyes to align and work together.  Someone who has difficulty with eye teaming may cover one eye, have difficulty completing assignments, experience headaches and double vision and tilts the head.  Binocular dysfunction is an eye coordination problem where the eyes drift outward when reading.  When reading our eyes turn inward and must point at the same on the page.  When the eyes don't line up, it causes problems reading.  There are two pathways for vision and when we can't use both systems, we sometimes develop tunnel vision.  Visual perception includes visual discrimination (ability to discriminate similarities and differences), visual spatial relationships (determine correct direction and spacing of objects) and visual memory (remember the characteristics of a given form).  To determine if a child has vision problems, a COVP Quality of Life Questionnaire is conducted.  If the child scores a 20 or more, they would benefit from an evaluation of their function skills.  Vision therapy may then be conducted 1 hour per week with 1/2 hour of additional practice at home for 16-24 weeks. Vision therapy includes training in eye movement, eye focusing, spatial awareness, visual perceptional skills and eye teaming to train the brain to redirect vision.  Once the therapy is completed, children can add numbers, spell words forward and backwards and have improved eye movement and tracking to enhance learning.