Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Dr. Briana Larson, OD, FCOVD, FAAO, FNORA, speak on the importance of the vision and learning connection this month, and find out what you can do to make sure your child has all the tools they need to reach their full academic potential.
Vision Has a Direct Effect on Learning
Educators are certainly aware that children with poor or blurry vision need to sit near the front of the classroom to maximize their learning potential, but they are also at the mercy of the effectiveness of local programs geared toward assessing the vision problems of children. Without proper testing and implementation of measures according to test results, children may not even be aware that they are struggling to learn because of their vision.
Nationwide, school screenings provide only an average of less than 4% of the tests needed to fully diagnose vision problems for children. That means as many as 75% of children pass screenings and are educated under the assumption that their vision does not affect their learning.
But children need to be able to see blackboards, whiteboards, worksheets, and computer screens without struggling to be able to harness the full potential of the education they are provided. Effective depth perception and 3D vision also help them learn about and understand the world around them both inside the classroom and when interacting with other children at play or work.
Standard Eye Exams Don’t Measure Up
Passing a standard eye chart test won’t tell you or your child if he or she is suffering from such common conditions as strabismus or amblyopia. Such conditions manifest in markedly different ways than other common problems such as astigmatism.
Issues with coordination between the brain and the eye have to be addressed with carefully planned and executed exercises collectively called vision therapy. By undergoing sustained and disciplined vision therapy, children are able to train their brains to compensate better for deficiencies in depth perception and eye-hand coordination.
But parents beware: eye exams performed for entire student bodies coordinated by school districts often only address very specific problems with blurry or cloudy vision caused by conditions that are generally addressed with a glasses or contacts prescription.
Your local eye doctor is not a vision therapy specialist; that is, he or she may be extremely skilled in diagnosing problems with vision that can be fixed by glasses or contacts, but issues involving the brain’s function and its interaction with vision require the careful hand of vision therapy specialists.
OCVT has won countless awards for our outstanding and innovative work, and we continue to raise our standard for success as we learn and grow. We’re proud of our patients’ achievements – come learn more from Dr. Larson and find out if your child is a good fit to become one of our success stories.