What Can Vision Therapy Help With?
There is a myriad of visual problems that a personalized vision therapy program and dedicated practice can help. Over 80% of learning is visual, so vision therapy can be the key to unlocking your child’s or your potential.
Some of the vision problems that vision therapy works on are:
- Eye tracking: how well your eyes follow a moving target.
- Eye teaming: how well both eyes work together.
- Binocular vision: the ability to fuse the separate images from each eye into one single image.
- Accommodation: focusing.
- Visual-motor integration: hand-eye coordination.
Amblyopia
Amblyopia, or “lazy eye,” is a lack or loss of development of vision in 1 eye that commonly affects children. It can occur due to an uncorrected refractive error, or because the eye is misaligned and is not used effectively.
Amblyopia usually occurs during infancy or early childhood and needs to be diagnosed early so the brain’s visual and neural pathways have a chance to develop properly.
Children rarely know they have a lazy eye because their stronger eye does the majority of the work. Infants should have their eyes checked by 6 months of age to ensure their eyes are healthy, well-aligned, and seeing equally. Yearly eye examinations are recommended for children starting at age 3.
Strabismus
Strabismus, or “crossed eyes,” occurs when the eyes are misaligned and cannot properly work together. This happens when the eye muscles that control movement are not strong enough to function correctly.
Strabismus is often hereditary and affects around 4% of children. It is usually diagnosed during childhood, with an equal affinity for boys and girls. Though strabismus cannot be prevented, early intervention can eliminate or reduce the problem through glasses or eye muscle surgery.
Even if your child’s eye appears to turn only intermittently, please bring them in for a complete exam to prevent the problem from worsening.
