Vision Development Center

According to the American Optometric Association, 60 percent of students identified as “problem learners” may actually have undetected vision problems. One of those problems could be something called convergence insufficiency.

“They said, ‘Oh he does have this convergence insufficiency in his eyes,’ and I thought, ‘Oh that’s a big name for something, what is it?” recalled mother Patty Walcott.

Walcott was surprised to learn that despite having 20/20 vision, her son, Clark, has C.I.

Convergence insufficiency is an eye movement disorder where the eyes don’t turn inward when focusing on a nearby object. For example, when you read or look at something up close you may not realize it, but your eyes should naturally turn inward. People with c-i have have to work harder to do this…

“I was getting a lot of headaches,” said Clark.

Headaches are one symptom, while others include difficulty concentrating, squinting or closing one eye, blurred vision, double vision and difficulty reading. For students, that can translate into a short attention span, fatigue and a tough time maintaining good grades.

Clark’s parents didn’t make a connection right away. They didn’t think his complaints matched what you would think to be an eye condition.

It’s estimated that anywhere from 5-12 percent of U.S. children may have the condition. But there may be many more that go undiagnosed because it can only be found with special eye-focusing tests. C.I. usually isn’t caught with standard eye chart tests.

Eye condition may seem like a learning problem-ABC7 Chicago

Pediatric optometrist with vision therapy training and specialized equipment can  correct this condition.

Larry Fitzgerald with his grandfather, Dr. Robert Johnson, and aunt, Dr. Stephanie Johnson-Brown.

AURORA, Ohio, July 31 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ –

Arizona Cardinals 2008 NFC West Champions’ wide-receiver, Larry Fitzgerald, is helping eye doctors spread the word to parents that vision problems can interfere with a child’s ability to pay attention, read and learn. “Even if you have been told your child has perfect vision or 20/20 vision, your child could still be at-risk of having a learning-related vision problem,” warns Fitzgerald

Do you have a child who takes forever to do homework? Or hates to read? Learning-related vision problems directly affect how we learn, read, or do close work.

The College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD) launched their annual campaign, August is National Children’s Vision & Learning month , to educate the public on the steps they can take to ensure their children aren’t struggling with reading and learning because of undiagnosed vision problems . “Parents don’t realize that you need over 15 visual skills to succeed in reading, learning, sports, and in life. Seeing ‘20/20′ is just one of those visual skills,” says Fitzgerald.

During the many pre- and post-Super Bowl press interviews, Fitzgerald explained that one of the keys to his success was having vision therapy as a child. He had a vision problem that was making it difficult to pay attention in school and his grandfather, Dr. Robert Johnson, a developmental optometrist in Chicago, Illinois, diagnosed the vision problem and the appropriate treatment.

Fitzgerald went through vision therapy under his aunt’s guidance, Dr. Stephanie Johnson-Brown, who is currently the executive director of the Plano Child Development Center, a not-for-profit vision care service corporation which was co-founded by her father, Dr. Johnson, in 1959, which specializes in vision education and the identification and remediation of vision development problems in children and adults.

According to a report from the New Jersey Commission on Business Efficiency of the Public School, “Undiagnosed and untreated vision-related learning problems are significant contributors to early reading difficulties and ultimately to special education classification.”  “There is abundant evidence that the academic abilities of children with learning problems that were the result of underlying vision problems improve after receiving vision therapy,” Dr. Carol Scott, President of COVD states. “It is important to understand that vision therapy treats vision problems that interfere with reading and learning; we do not treat dyslexia or other learning disabilities.”
“It is unfortunate that many children struggle for years despite tutoring and other special services before their parents find a developmental optometrist,” Scott continues. “Parents continually share their frustration with us that they wish they had found us sooner.”

Fitzgerald is joining COVD this year to help spread the word that 20/20 is NOT perfect vision and that if your children are struggling with reading you need to take them to see a developmental optometrist. You can visit COVD’s Web site to find a developmental optometrist near you.

“Vision problems can have a serious impact on a child’s education. Don’t wait to see if this next school year will be better; take action today!” Fitzgerald encourages parents.
Convergence insufficiency , one of the most common vision disorders that interferes with reading, was recently the focus of a scientific study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Eye Institute. This is a vision problem where the two eyes don’t work together in unison the way they are supposed to when one is reading. The result can make reading very difficult.

While at least one out of every 20 school-age children is impacted by convergence insufficiency, there are other visual abnormalities to be considered. It is estimated that over 60% of problem learners have undiagnosed vision problems contributing to their difficulties.

The good news is the majority of these vision problems can be treated with a program of optometric vision therapy. The study by the NEI found that in-office vision therapy was the best treatment for convergence insufficiency.

The five most common signs that a vision problem may be interfering with your child’s ability to read and learn are:
1. Skips lines, rereads lines
2. Poor reading comprehension
3. Takes much longer doing homework than it should take
4. Reverses letters like b’s into d’s when reading
5. Has a short attention span with reading and schoolwork
Any one of these symptoms is a sign of a possible vision problem. A more in-depth symptom checklist is available on COVD’s Web site.

Not all eye doctors test for learning-related vision problems, so it is important for parents to ask the right questions. Call your eye doctor’s office and ask the following two questions:
1. Do you test for learning-related vision problems?
2. Do you provide an in-office vision therapy program when indicated, or
Will you refer me to someone who does?
If the answer is no to either one or both of these questions, visit COVD’s Web site, www.covd.org , to find a developmental optometrist near you.

In closing, the President of COVD, Dr. Carol Scott, a developmental optometrist from Springfield, Missouri, says, “In celebration of August being National Children’s Vision & Learning month, I invite you to visit our Web site and learn more about the vital role vision plays in our children’s education.”

About COVD
The College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD) is an international, non-profit optometric membership organization that provides education, evaluation and board certification programs in behavioral and developmental vision care, vision therapy and visual rehabilitation. The organization is comprised of doctors of optometry, vision therapists and other vision specialists. For more information on learning-related vision problems, vision therapy and COVD, please visit www.covd.org or call 888.268.3770.
CONTACT: Pamela R. Happ, CAE COVD Executive Director 888 268 3770 tel Email: phapp@covd.org Web site: www.covd.org
SOURCE College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD)

by Susan R. Barry, Ph.D.

Dr Susan Barry, Professor of Neurobiology

As another school year is brought to a close, we need to ask again why so many children struggle in their classes. Sometimes the answer is right in the front of our face.

When I was in second grade, I did miserably on a standardized achievement test. The school principal told my parents that I was, “a dim bulb,” and I was placed in a class with other “problem” children. But the principal was unaware of the connection between vision and reading. I was cross-eyed and, in the previous five years, my eyes had been surgically rearranged in their sockets three times. I had 20/20 eyesight with each eye, but even after the operations, my two eyes still did not point to the same place at the same time. In fact, when trying to read, I saw letters with my right eye that were to the left of those I saw with my left eye. No wonder I had trouble pinpointing the letters on the page and did not like to read.

Poor eye coordination affects more than the four percent of children who are cross-eyed or walleyed. An additional five percent of children (about one per classroom) have a condition called “convergence insufficiency.” Although their eyes look straight and they may coordinate them well for far viewing, they do not use them well when they look near. When they try to read, the letters appear blurry or doubled. Since a young child may not know that this is abnormal, he may not report what he sees to his teachers or parents. Sadly, this condition is not picked up by the standard school eye exam which tests only how well one eye sees at a distance of twenty feet. As a result, the child may be diagnosed with a learning disability, or if he misbehaves in frustration, with ADHD.

Even if a child’s vision disorder is diagnosed, it can be surprisingly difficult to obtain the proper treatment. According to a recent National Eye Institute study, the best treatment for convergence insufficiency is optometric vision therapy. Yet, ophthalmologists and pediatricians are not generally trained in vision therapy and don’t always refer the patients to the developmental/behavioral optometrists who are. Medical insurance companies may not cover the treatments making the vision therapy difficult to afford.

If we really want to help our children to learn, then we need to provide them with a thorough binocular vision exam before or at the time they enter kindergarten. Such testing could provide huge savings as children struggling with reading in school may then get the early intervention they need. Detecting vision problems early and seeking the right treatment can change a child’s vision and transform a child’s life.

Note: I wrote about this issue in a recent Op-Ed published in the Los Angeles Times and in my book, Fixing My Gaze.  Another good website to learn about the connection between vision and reading is here.

From Psychology Today

Dr. Janet Wilamowski to give lecture entitled Vision: Its Affect on Learning and Attention and How Vision Therapy Can Help

Dr. Janet Wilamowski, a specially trained Developmental Optometrist, Vision Therapist, and CEO of The Vision Development Center of King of Prussia, PA will speak at the Radisson Valley Forge on February 10, 2009 on the topic of correcting misdiagnosed ADHD and learning problems with dramatic success through Vision Therapy.

It is widely acknowledged that many children across the country are incorrectly diagnosed with ADHD and learning disabilities.  Although it is unknown precisely how many of these children are actually experiencing visually related concentration problems, it is believed to be a startlingly high percentage!  And while the medications most often prescribed to help children suffering from ADHD and other forms of learning disabilities can be highly beneficial, they have little or no ability to help those suffering from visual disorders masquerading as ADHD.

This seminar has been developed for Occupational Therapists, Speech-Language Pathologists, Psychologists, Social Workers, Counselors, Special Education Teachers, Reading Specialists, and School Nurses. The purpose is to demonstrate and convey why visual function and performance is intimately involved with reading, learning, and concentration. Interdisciplinary strategies for successful intervention will be explained and discussed. Through hands-on experience, participants will be introduced to multiple visual testing sequences, experience what it is like to have a visually-related concentration problem , learn how to identify a visually related concentration problem, and differentiate those with ADHD. This seminar will truly be an EYE-OPENER!
Qualified participants in the seminar given by Dr. Wilamowski were awarded continuing education credits and gave written feedback, including:

• “Very important topic”
• “Good information; the presentation was excellent, I learned so much!”
• “Good information about visual acuity versus visual perception and processing”
• “So much wonderful information”
• “Presenter was approachable and knowledgeable”
• “I was very impressed. I have students in my class who, if they were able to get Vision Therapy, would be put back in the regular education classroom!”

WEDNESDAY, March 5 (HealthDay News) — People with amblyopia have broader bandwidth of perceptual learning in their visual system than people with normal vision, suggesting greater plasticity and wider generalization in this population, according to research released online March 3 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Chang-Bing Huang, of the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui, China, and colleagues analyzed data from 10 teenagers and adults with unilateral anisometropic amblyopia and 21 with normal or corrected normal vision; the latter participants were put into two control groups. The researchers provided training at a single spatial frequency and measured sensitivity to sinewave gratings of various spatial frequencies before and after the training.

For amblyopic participants, training improved visual acuities in affected and fellow eyes, but not in the control groups. For selected members in the amblyopic group and one control group who had significant performance improvement at the training frequency, the bandwidth of perceptual learning was very different: the average full bandwidth was 4.04±0.63 octaves in the amblyopic group and only 1.40±0.30 octaves for the normal observers.

“We suggest re-evaluating the conventional wisdom for treating amblyopes: that passing the critical period results in a fully (though erroneously) developed visual system that is immune to therapeutic modifications. The current study, together with several others, demonstrates that the adult amblyopic visual system remains remarkably plastic, and perceptual learning could lead to substantial improvements of spatial vision in adult amblyopia,” the authors conclude.