Learning Related Vision Problems and Vision Therapy
1. The National Parent Teacher Association (PTA) estimates that there are 10 million children under 10 years of age in the U.S. that have vision problems.
2. Up to 25% of all school- age children have vision problems significant enough to impair academic performance. The rate may be as high as 60% for those children labeled as having learning problems.
3. An evaluation of the visual efficiency of beginning readers in a public school found that visual factors were the primary cause of reading failure and that most current school screenings are inadequate to detect these problems.
4. A study of inner city youths found that poor vision is related to academic and behavioral problems among at-risk children.
5. Vision problems are often typically misdiagnosed as learning disabilities or ADD/ADHD leading to special education intervention and unnecessary drug treatment of school children.
6. The 20/20 eye chart test (invented in the 1860s) only measures what you can see far away, not the ―up-close‖ ability to see books or computers, nor the ability of the eyes and brain to work together in processing visual information.
7. Thorough vision examinations measure eye teaming (how the eyes work together), focusing (ease in sustaining focus for upclose work), and tracking skills (how accurately and smoothly eyes move together across a page of print) as well as visual information processing abilities.
8. Developmental Optometrists can provide vision examinations that fully assess these vision problems. These doctors are trained in evaluation of learning-related vision problems and treatment using special glasses and vision therapy.
9. Studies have shown that the correction of vision problems with vision therapy leads to significant reduction in visual symptoms and improvements in reading performance.
References:
1. National Parent Teacher Association 2. American Foundation for Vision Awareness 3. Optometry & Vision Development 4. Journal of Behavioral Optometry 5. Binocular Vision & Eye Muscle Surgery Quarterly 6. Optometry and Vision Science 7. Optometry: Journal of the American Optometric Association
This article is a reprint distributed by the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (www.covd.org).