Urban Eyewear

Guidelines For Assisting Vision Therapy At Home

When doing vision therapy, you can help your child to learn and develop if the following steps are taken

• Don’t judge your child’s performance as bad or wrong. Your child will almost always do the best they can at any time, but they may not always do the activity as they have been shown. Always let your child tell you how they perform a procedure, rather than you telling them. This way your child is encouraged to self assess their performance. Self awareness is very important for learning. Sometimes they may unaware they are not doing the task as requested. If so, ask questions like “did you feel like you were moving the opposite arm and leg at the same time” or “did you feel your head was moving” rather than saying “stop moving your head”. If, for example, they are unaware of their head movement ask them to do it again trying to notice if it is moving. If the helper always asks questions rather than making judgments they will contribute greatly to the success of home therapy.

• Home therapy is best done in separate room away from siblings and distractions such as television. This will improve performance.

• Activities are likely to produce some stress in your child, or they would not need to be done. Frequent praise and encouragement will help relieve this stress and allow faster progress. Talk about the parts they got right, rather than the parts they got wrong.  

• If you child is having significant difficulty with a procedure and is becoming frustrated, do not proceed – stop the task. Try to gradually increase the time spent on the activity each day, but always stop short of failure. If success is achieved and your child wants to continue a little longer with the task, encourage them to do so. Remember to challenge but not to frustrate.  

• Try to set aside a specific time, the same time everyday to do therapy. Try to practice activities for at least 15 minutes each day, at least 5 days a week.