4
Oct

Visual health is more than having 20/20 eyesight. There are many ways that the eyes work in conjunction with the brain to impact learning and perception. Some of these vision problems can’t be treated with corrective lenses, so you might consider other options such as Vision Therapy.

An Overview of Vision Therapy

This treatment is designed to help with a variety of vision conditions. The advantage of choosing an optometrist who offers vision therapy is that the treatments will be customized to match the needs of each patient. The eye doctor will assess a variety of skills during the exam, and then put together a treatment plan to address these concerns.

Vision Therapy treats more than just the eyes. The exercises are designed to retrain the brain, which plays a big role in how and what we see. Many times, the movement and function of the eyes impact a child’s ability to learn and develop. So, we consider the visual skills that will impact the patient’s education.

These are some of the skills that are assessed and treated with Vision Therapy:

• Accommodation: Can the patient change focus from an object nearby to something far away, and then back again?
• Binocularity: Can each eye see an image, and then the two images are combined into one? Does the patient have depth perception skills?
• Direction: Does the child follow the words and letters moving left to right, or do they often read the information backward?
• Oculomotor Movement: Can the eyes track to follow a moving object or move to read words on a page?
• Visual Discrimination: When comparing two numbers, is the child able to notice the differences between numbers and letters that look similar?
• Visual Memory: Can the patient view a sequence of information and remember the information? How easy is it for the child to read something on the board and then copy it onto a piece of paper?
• Visual Motor Integration: Does the patient have good hand-eye coordination?

If your child is having a hard time in school, then there is a possibility that Vision Therapy might be a solution to overcome these issues. Schedule an exam to learn more about these treatments. You can come to our Temecula office at (951) 302-1331 or our Murrieta office at (951) 600-9226.