At the Vision Learning Center of Champions, we know that vision skills are essential for learning. According to the American Optometric Association (AOA), however, 25 percent of students have a vision problem significant enough to impact their learning skills, including reading, handwriting, and spelling.
If your child is struggling with learning problems and vision problems may be the cause, optometrist Dr. A. Davis can create a highly-effective individualized program of vision therapy, sometimes known as vision training.
It is important to know that vision therapy can be necessary for children with perfect vision. These children may have trouble getting their eyes to focus or follow items, for example catching a ball, tracking a line of text across a page or interpreting what they are reading.
What Is Vision Therapy?
Vision therapy is usually prescribed and supervised by specially trained optometrists. It is a form of pediatric eye care designed to teach the child how the brain controls the eyes the brain, develop or strengthen visual skills and abilities and change or retrain a child’s visual system to interpret visual input with increased accuracy and ease.
Pediatric vision therapy is non-surgical and drug-free and involves a series of in-office and at home exercises performed over weeks or months and may rely on training glasses, prisms, filters, patches, balance boards or even video games. It is like physical therapy for the eyes.
What Can Vision Therapy Be Used to Treat?
Dr. Davis and her team can use vision therapy to treat a range of vision problems, including lazy eye (which affects close to 300,000 children across the United States), eye strain, insufficient focus, crossed eyes, insufficient focus, ocular muscle dysfunction, concussions and learning-related vision disorders.
Vision Therapy for Adults
Vision therapy is not just for children — adults can benefit from the treatment as well. In older patients, the therapy may help with:
- Headaches or migraines
- Eyestrain
- Fatigue
- Focusing issues
- Double vision
- Motion sickness
- Reading comprehension
- Concussion
Vision therapy may be more necessary with adults who read a lot or use computers extensively.
If you or your child struggles with one of these problems and could benefit from a customized program of vision therapy, contact our Houston, TX-based clinic to make an appointment. Be sure to get your child in this Spring so they are ready for the upcoming school year! We are here to help maintain the eye health of every patient!
