It is helpful to know how one acquires vision in the first place
to understand how vision can be enhanced by Behavioural
Optometric care. Except in rare cases, most babies are born with
the necessary hardware to allow the development of normal
vision. They are born with a brain and nerves, eyes, head, neck,
torso, arms and legs etc. They are also born with certain basic
vision reflexes e.g. the startle reflex, the pupillary reflex,
etc. The experiences that children have over the first few years
of life set the stage for their educational and adult lives.
Vision is learned and developed through these experiences. As
children learn they develop mental software to enable them to
use the latent potential of their hardware. If we consider a
normal, healthy 6 year old child about to learn to ride a two-
wheeled bicycle. The child has normal hardware (arms, legs,
body, muscles, tendons etc.) but, as yet, has no experience –
and therefore no software – to ride the bicycle. As he begins to
ride for the first time he f