PARENTS AND TEACHERS

75% to 90% of all a child learning comes to him via the visual pathways. Consequently any interference in those pathways, a child will not develop to his maximum potential.

Some things to look for in children that may indicate vision problem:

    Amblyopia ("lazy eye")

    Strabismus or an eyeturn

    Avoidance of near work and skipping words or lines when reading

    Squinting to see the blackboard

Children should be examined by an optometrist during infancy, preschool, and school years to detect potential vision defects. Did you know that a child can pass the 20/20 test and still have significant vision problems which will interfere in school, sports and/or social life?

If there is a history of lazy eye, eyeturn or convergence disorders it is important that the child's eyes be examined early.Testing of eye teaming and eye tracking skills (binocular vision and binocular depth perception) should be a part of every child's comprehensive eye examination.

Some binocular vision impairments are not easily detected by parents or teachers because the turning or straying of the eye(s) is NOT obvious or consistent. Some children's eye turns are intermittent (they come and go) and may manifest only when the child is tired, stressed or ill. A binocular vision problem deserves attention and treatment, even when the eye turn is only occasionally visible.

IMPORTANT: Parents and teachers often have difficulty recognizing some visual problems because children don't necessarily know how or what they're supposed to be seeing, so it's unlikely they will clearly describe visual problems. A child who has never known normal vision or depth perception doesn't know what he or she is missing.  

Click on the tabs on the left hand side of this page to find out more on vision associated problems that may require vision therapy.