Can vision therapy help my child?

Published on

April 12, 2022

Can vision therapy help my child? Unless you have a full understanding of what vision therapy can do, or what conditions it can treat, you cannot answer that question.

What is vision therapy?

Vision therapy is described as a method of developing visual skills and abilities, enhancing visual comfort, ease, and efficiency, and changing the visual processing and/or comprehension of visual information.

Typically, vision therapy programs consist of both supervised in-office treatment and at-home exercises spread over a few weeks or several months. The process can be compared to physical therapy.

What symptoms can be alleviated by vision therapy?

The easiest way to determine whether vision therapy is appropriate for your child is to think about the types of symptoms that you might see them exhibit.

Physical symptoms

The physical symptoms can include eye strain, eye pain, headaches while reading, and double vision and words moving around on the page. Children may also lose their place frequently when reading, skip words or lines, or reread or substitute words. These are more of what are considered physical symptoms, and they could indicate an underlying vision problem that could be helped by vision therapy.

Performance symptoms

The second set of symptoms we want to examine more are called performance symptoms. We may have a child whose cognitive potential seems excellent, but yet there seems to be a discrepancy between where we think they ought to be performing and where they are performing at. It could be a problem with remembering sight words, compared to phonetic words. It could also be a problem learning letters and numbers and just remembering them after repetitive practice.
A child may have difficulty with reading comprehension, which means not being able to understand what they read. This child may perform better when they are read to versus when they have to read something themselves.
They may also have difficulty spelling, among other academic difficulties.
Thus, if your child is experiencing any of these physical or performance symptoms, it is likely that there is an underlying vision problem that would greatly benefit from vision therapy.

What problems can vision therapy correct?

Many different vision issues can be treated with vision therapy, including strabismus (conditions in which the eyes do not align properly when looking at an object), amblyopia (lazy eye), eye movement disorders, and focusing disorders. Additionally, it can help with vision problems caused by developmental disabilities or acquired through brain injury (for example, from an accident.)

Schedule a developmental eye exam at our Chattanooga Optometry clinic

At our pediatric specialty clinic located in Hixson just outside of Chattanooga we offer developmental eye exams that examine the full scope of your child’s functional vision. Our office is led by Dr. Heather McBryar, and is focused on advanced vision care for children. Dr. McBryar is a fellow of the College of Optometrists in Vision Development and is the leading pediatric eye care center in the Chattanooga area. Call our office at (423) 710 3965 to schedule a developmental eye exam today.

Testimonials

Vision therapy is well worth the response, time and effort. Our Son had a hard time focusing and writing neatly. After vision therapy Seth could complete a task in half the time if previously took. His abilities to focus improved greatly and so did his handwriting.

Also, he was better at listening. As a parent, we wanted learning to be fun for our Son, and vision therapy made this possible.

Amanda T.

Vision Therapy is well worth the expense, time and effort. Our son had a hard time focusing handwriting neatly. After vision therapy Seth could complete a task in half the time it previously took his abilities to focus and improved greatly and so did his handwriting.

Also, he was better at listening. As a parent you wanted learning to be fun for our son and vision therapy made this possible.

Alexa H.

Vision Therapy has given or son the tools he needs to be able to scan and read the written word more effectively and efficiently.

He love working with John and these working sessions give him the motivation to gladly work on his homework assignments.

It amazed us to see the difference in the tracking of his eyes and along a line of it's from the beginning to the end of the treatment.

Dr. McBryar , Kristen and John are all marvelous and we would recommend them to anyone I only wish that we would have found them sooner!

Charlotte M.

Prior to coming to the institute for vision development my son complained of daily headaches. Therapy has eliminated his headaches completely. I love knowing my son is able to learn pain-free for the rest of his life because of the work that has been done over just a few weeks in this office. He he absolutely loved coming that didn't even feel like going to a doctor or therapy. We are grateful for the relief he was able to find by coming here.

Thank you!

Olivia C.

Seems much less frustrated with life

Reads non-stop and fast

Spelling abilities have been hugely improved

Seems much more confident

Thank You!!!

Kelly O.

When we first came to the practice, my son did not have huge issues, but lots of small ones- trouble with reading, sports (hitting the baseball consistently), coordination, etc- that were not easily detectable,but when put together presented issues. The staff here were all very professional and loving towards him. While I was concerned in the reading, my son was concerned with the athletic side. Seeing improvement night off the bat gave him confidence that i have nor seen in him and made him want to not only Come to therapy, but also made him want to work hard. He has surpassed his grade level and above in reading and hit his first home run this year! Thank you!!!