How are Vision and Learning linked?

Did you know that much of what you learn comes through your visual system? If a child is struggling with
school and says things like, "I am not smart," "I can't," and "it's too hard," you begin to do everything you
can to help your child to succeed. You get them a tutor, you have them stay after school to get help, you
spend countless hours helping them with homework and at the end of the day your child is frustrated,
unmotivated and overly tired. This sounds all too familar, right?

Studies show that children who have problems with reading, spelling, writing, math, and/or many social
skills are often deficient in the execution of many types of eye movements. 
 They do not work both eyes well together as a team (binocularity)
 They move their eyes asymmetrically when trying to converge (point the eyes closer)
 They diverge (point the eyes further away) their eyes
 They have difficulty keeping a target clear where they are looking (focusing and accommodation)
 They make errors when trying to fixate or track a moving object (saccades and pursuits)
These poor eye movement skills play a large role in understanding the problems that children encounter
when attempting to perform school work and other visual tasks. They have caused their vision to perform
inaccurately, to be much less useful for them than for other individuals, and to cause a variety of visual
perceptual problems.

Here are ten examples of how vision impacts your child in school:

1. When children are first learning to read, vision problems can impede the development of basic
reading skills. 
2. When children are reading to learn, as is the case with older readers, blurry or double vision can
impact their ability to read for long periods of time.  Reading comprehension can be severely reduced.
3. When children have trouble seeing things as clear and single (instead of two images, as is the case
with double vision), they may have trouble identifying decimals and/or signs in math.
4. When children have poor visual skills, it impacts their ability to organize their writing, and may
impair their ability to line up numbers in math.
5. In math, not seeing the numbers correctly can lead to miscalculations. When children lack
visualization skills, they may have to count on their fingers or verbalize number sequences, which can
affect their performance on timed tests.
6. When children are adept at math, they may still do poorly because their vision problems affect
their ability to read story problems correctly and efficiently.
7. When children have problems with visual recall, which is the ability to create a visual image based
on past visual experience, they may have difficulty with spelling.
8. When children have vision problems, their handwriting may suffer. Vision leads the hand when
writing, and a poorly functioning visual system can lead to difficulty with neatness and organization of
handwriting.
9. When children have laterality and directionality problems, they will have problems differentiating
similarly-shaped letters in different orientations (b, d, p, q) and may read or write them backwards.
10. When children have poor visualization skills, they may not be able to organize and reorganize a
composition in their head, which can affect their writing.
As you can imagine, these are just a few of the many examples of how vision and learning are intricately
intertwined. The relationship exists on many levels and affects virtually every subject, which is why a
vision problem can be so debilitating to a young learner.

Our goal at Optometric Physicians is to effectively get your child's eyes working together as a team. This
blog is a great tool on understanding how your child's vision is affecting them to learn and process
information. Please call our office if you have any further question at 615-386-3036.
Posted by Nashville Vision Therapy at 6:35 AM 0 comments 
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Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Does Your Child Have Bad Handwriting?

Parents and educators tend to be the first people who will determine if there is a need for vision therapy
for children. Once they understand the telltale symptoms, such as handwriting issues, they can spot
children who may have a vision problem.

One area in which vision problems manifest is in a child’s handwriting. Take a look at some handwriting
issues experienced by students with vision problems:
These are some examples of how handwriting can be affected by a vision problem. However, another
common symptom is that a child has very neat handwriting, but they’re very slow when it comes to
actually writing.

As you examine your child’s handwriting, look for the other symptoms typical of vision problems. Some
typical symptoms include rubbing eyes, having watery eyes or avoiding writing. Children may also suffer
from headaches or have a short attention span while writing. Check out our first blog for the long list of
symptoms of vision problems.

Joey
Bad handwriting — or good clue of vision problem?

Joey was a bright second-grader who struggled in school. Three surgeries for
crossed eyes and bifocals had helped his vision, but not enough. For Joey, handwriting remained difficult,
almost painful. Joey’s handwriting was sloppy and not well spaced, as seen in the writing test below,
lower left. The top sentence is what Joey was supposed to copy.

As you can see, Joey had a difficult time. This test was discontinued at five minutes, unfinished. But in
Joey’s post-therapy writing, on the right, note the improvement in letter formation, spacing, and legibility
— done in under four minutes!

Joey came to vision therapy weekly and did exercises at home. After six months, all of his visual skills
improved, as did his ability to read and write. At the end of therapy — tah-dah! — a happier kid who no
longer avoided writing!