Did you know that poor visual skills can make it difficult for your child to succeed in school?
Does your child have trouble staying on task in the classroom? Is their handwriting sloppy? These may be signs of overlooked vision problems. Fortunately, vision therapy can help!
Read on as an optometrist Saginaw, TX talks about overlooked vision problems, how they can affect a child’s performance in school, and how vision therapy works to address these issues.
- Often-Overlooked Vision Problems
We tend to focus on the obvious things that children need in order to succeed at school, such as reading and writing. But there are other skills, visual skills—such as eye teaming, focusing and tracking—that children need in order to be successful learners.
What, exactly, are these skills? Let’s take a look:
- Eye teaming refers to how well both eyes work together as a team.
- Focusing is the ability to keep your eyes on one object as it moves or changes position.
- Eye tracking measures how smoothly your eyes move over letters or words in a line of text, from left to right and top to bottom—and it also notes where you skip letters, words, or lines.
- How Vision Therapy Can Help
Vision therapy not only identifies overlooked problems, but also treats them. It’s an exercise-based therapy that is used to improve a child’s vision.
These exercises may include:
- Reading exercises
- Eye muscle exercises
- Computer games that help train the eyes
- Drawing and copying activities (to improve hand-eye coordination)
- Activities that help strengthen the brain’s ability to process visual information
- Activities that encourage your child to use both eyes together
- Activities that help improve eye tracking
- Activities that improve eye coordination and hand-eye coordination
- Games designed to improve depth perception and visual motor skills
- Homework assignments to practice at home
- Signs Your Child May Need Vision Therapy
- Poor grades in school, especially if they are having trouble reading and writing
- Difficulty with handwriting
- Trouble keeping up with other students in school, especially when it comes to reading, math, and spelling
- Trouble with spelling, reading comprehension, math, or memorizing anything
- Easily distracted by movement or things happening around them (like someone else reading aloud)
- Headaches or other pain in their eyes after reading or doing homework for long periods of time
- Difficulty reading in dim light
- Frequent headaches or migraines
If you have more questions or wish to schedule a consultation, please don’t hesitate to call us, your local optometrist Saginaw, TX, anytime!
