Welcome to Dr. Gallop's New Blog

Originally posted on April 12th, 2012

The primary purpose of the visual process is to direct action.

The visual process is pervasive in human behavior.

Hello and welcome to my blog. I will periodically post new material that I hope will be informative and helpful to those interested in Behavioral Optometry, Vision Therapy, Myopia Reduction, Strabismus, Lazy Eye or Eye Muscle Surgery. My work as a behavioral optometrist also enables me to help people with their visual conditions related to Learning Difficulties and Autism Spectrum behaviors (including ADD, ADHD, etc.). I also work with people who have visual issues related to conditions like Cerebral Palsy and Acquired Brain Injury.  I also provide vision enhancement training to athletes of all ages and all levels.  You probably already know that I am a Developmental/Behavioral Optometrist and you may even have some idea what that means. Every person who comes to my office offers me a new adventure, since I have more of a specialty practice.  I mostly see people based on referrals.  This means almost everyone I see has already attempted to relieve their complaints with one or more other doctors, to no avail.

My approach to vision care is extremely different than the vast majority of eye care professionals.  I am interested in seeking out the causes of reduced visual performance and comfort.  Most doctors are focused on the symptoms and the quickest way to eliminate or hide them.  My goal is to make things as right as possible as quickly as possible, but with an emphasis on getting to the root of the problem and addressing not only the results (nearsightedness, astigmatism, lazy eye, learning difficulties, coordination problems, etc.) but the causes.  The causes have to do with developmental visual issues concerning eye movements, eye teaming, focusing, peripheral awareness and how all these aspects of the visual process interact.

I will use this forum to share my philosophy on Developmental/Behavioral Optometry, vision therapy/visual training and the many visual conditions I treat. I will also be sharing stories from some of the people who come to me for help.

As I mentioned, I work with people of all ages including:

Children with reading problems and learning difficulties of all kinds

Children on the autism spectrum

Children with specified or unspecified developmental delays

People of all ages with neurological conditions like Cerebral Palsy

People of all ages with traumatic brain injuries including head trauma, closed head trauma, post concussion syndrome, strokes, etc.

Adults with work and/or computer-related complaints such as eye fatigue, headaches, neck pain, general fatigue related to work

Most of these people have been living with these visually-related symptoms for long periods of time.  Many have seen one or more doctors specifically to address their complaints only to have them dismissed as being unrelated to their vision, or worse, non-existent.  Almost all of these people are likely to experience considerable improvement with proper lenses and optometric vision therapy/visual training.

Next time: The Visual Process – what it means, how we use it for everything we do.   In the meantime if you have any questions please feel free to leave a comment or contact me.