What are the Visual Skills?

The visual skills that can be developed and improved through vision therapy include:

Tracking: Imagine watching someone throw a ball to you.  Your eyes follow the path of this ball to your hands.  You are using tracking – the ability to follow a moving object with your eyes.

Fixation: When we read, we use fixation – the ability to find and look at a series of stationary objects (like words on a page). 

Focus Change: Children in school are very familiar with this skill – every time they look from the chalkboard to their paper while copying notes, they are changing focus.  Adults use this skill often as well – while driving, it is important to be able to change your focus from the road to your dashboard quickly and precisely. 

Depth Perception:  Depth perception helps you to see things in three dimensions.  This important skill helps you to navigate in the world without bumping into things or knocking things over. 

Peripheral Vision:  You’ve probably caught yourself saying “…out of the corner of my eye…” before.  You were referring to peripheral vision – the ability to notice things outside of your direct line of sight and understand what is going on, even though you weren’t looking directly at it. 

Binocularity:  Our eyes were designed to work together by pointing in the same place and moving together accurately and smoothly.  This is binocularity. 

Visual Memory: Visual memory helps us to remember and “picture” things that we’ve seen before.  This skill can help you in many ways – finding your lost keys, recalling information that you’ve read before, giving directions to a specific place, etc. 

Near and Distance Acuity:  This is probably the skill that most people think of when they hear the word “optometrist”.  Acuity is the ability to see clearly – far away and close up.  But as you can see, acuity is just one of the many skills important to healthy vision.

Symptoms of a Vision Problem

So what happens when your vision isn’t working at its best?  There are a number of symptoms of a vision problem, including:

Headaches: especially near the eyes or forehead, or occasionally at the back of the head.

Double vision:  seeing two of something when only one exists.

Reduced performance:  losing your place while reading, rereading words or lines, difficulty understanding what you’ve read, or reading slowly. 

Discomfort or Fatigue:  body tension, stress or pain; weariness at the end of a school or workday. 

Suppression:  information from one eye is blocked or ignored by the brain in order to avoid seeing double. 

A combination of vision therapy and glasses can improve, prevent, or remedy these conditions in both children and adults. 

So What Is Vision Therapy?

If you think that you or someone you know could benefit from vision therapy, the first step is to schedule an appointment with your local behavioral optometrist.  He or she will meet with you, assess your skills, and explain exactly what would be best for you. 

For most people, vision therapy means visits to their optometrist’s office once a week, where they work with a therapist.  In some offices, the optometrist acts as the therapist.  In other offices, there are trained vision therapists working under the supervision of an optometrist.  That person will guide you through activities designed to build your visual skills.  The activities are often fun, though challenging.  Your therapist might give you a few activities to work on at home.  Don’t worry – they usually only take around 15 minutes a day.

What are the Benefits?

People that have done vision therapy report a wide range of benefits.  The benefits are different for everyone and depend on each person’s experience.  That said, many younger patients have noticed that they get better grades in school and homework is no longer such a chore to complete.  Adults report that they work more efficiently in the office.  Patients of all ages say that reading is easier, they read for fun when they never did before, they have improved at sports, and they no longer get headaches. 

Vision therapy can even affect things that you might not associate with vision – people have noticed that they are more outgoing, have higher self-esteem, and are more confident in trying new things.  Each person that enters vision therapy has their own list of things that they would like to improve.  Your therapists work with you to help you achieve those personal goals, whatever they may be.

What is a Behavioral Optometrist?

A behavioral optometrist is someone who is interested in helping people naturally improve the functioning of their entire vision system.  They have spent years in post-graduate education learning how to best serve their patients. 

Not all optometrists practice behavioral optometry.  To see if your optometrist practices behavioral vision care, ask him or her the following questions.  A behavioral optometrist will answer “yes” to the following:

• Do you provide a full series of nearpoint vision tests?
• Do you provide work or school related visual perception tests?
• Do you provide full vision care and vision therapy in your office, or will you refer me to someone who does if necessary?
• Will you see me again during the year, and periodically to determine my progress?

With this information, you can feel confident that your vision needs will be addressed at your next appointment.