Combining optometric vision therapy with occupational therapy results in an integrated solution. Overall coordination and alertness are improved, which in turn affects performance in sports and in school.
Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) affects a wide variety of people. Individuals with SPD and other different diagnoses or labels may have sensory issues such as sound sensitivity, difficulty screening out background noise, or visual sensitivity to fluorescent lights.
View a demo of what it is like to read for those with Convergence Insufficiency or Accommodative Insufficiency.
Does Your Child Suffer From a Commonly Undiagnosed Vision Problem?
While the news media provide day-to-day coverage of Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' recovery from a bullet wound, similar dramas play out every day for American troops who return home with head injuries from combat.
Like children with ADHD, adults with the condition typically have trouble concentrating, get distracted easily, have problems following directions and organizing their tasks and forget to do things. As a result, they may perform poorly in their jobs, be chronically late, have difficulty controlling their anger and have relationship problems.
Too often, visual problems which would have been detected early in non-disabled children go undiagnosed and untreated for children with disabilities, perhaps because the visual examination would be difficult, or the child is not able to verbalize a problem, or the school's test showed "normal" 20/20 eyesight.
In some cases, typical autistic behaviors like poor eye contact, looking through or beyond objects, extreme aversion to light, unusual reaction to sight, lack of reciprocal play, inordinate fear of heights or lack of appropriate fear of heights may be symptoms of visual problems that can be remediated with vision therapy.
Many of the behavioral characteristics of those falling within the autism spectrum involve the visual system. Poor eye contact, staring at lights or spinning objects, looking askance, side viewing and general difficulties attending are often symptoms of visual dysfunction.
A "Joint Policy Statement" published online in the Journal Pediatrics on July 27 appears to cobble together outdated research and vision science, such as the controversial Irlen lens, in an attempt to discredit optometric vision therapy, according to prominent optometrists.
Take a moment to see what you can do to help your child develop and maintain good vision to last a lifetime.