Other Related Problems

Relationship between visual skills and childhood conditions:

Attention Deficit Disorder and Visual Skills
research reported by Dr. David B. Granet at the April, 2000, meeting of the American Academy of Pediatric Ophthalmology & Strabismus indicated that a visual disorder known as Convergence Insufficiency is three times more common in children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD) than in the general population.

Convergence Insufficiency is characterized by a person's inability to maintain proper alignment of both eyes on objects as they approach from far to near. A Convergence Disorder likely results in Intermittent Central Suppression(ICS) and is correctable by our vision training method. Many of the symptoms typically used to diagnose ADD/ADHD are also recognized as symptoms of learning-related visual problems.

Dyslexia is a common diagnosis of children who can not read well. ICS is an on and off (intermittent) nerve shutdown (suppression) from one eye to the brain. This allows the suppressed eye to momentarily drift away from the words being read. When the nerve signal from the eye is again sent to the brain, the eye is not looking at the correct location on the line, causing confusion in the direction of reading, skipping words, misreading words, etc. This may also result in reversals of letters or numbers when reading and writing.

Eye-hand coordination problems Often in elementary years, teachers may note that a child has unusual difficulty coloring within the lines, drawing, writing, cutting with scissors, and other skills that require the eyes and hands to work together. Sometimes these children also have difficulty determining slight differences and recognizing similarities in visual material.

Learning Disabilities
Educators who note a serious discrepancy between a child's intellectual ability (IQ) and his or her academic ability or performance in one or more subject areas may determine that the child is learning disabled. This is a generic term that may represent any of a number of specific learning problems observed by teachers and parents. While there are many possible causes, the child should be screened for ICS and other visual pathway problems as part of a comprehensive evaluation.

What does this mean? This means that any child who is diagnosed as dyslexic, learning disabled, ADD/ADHD, or has eye-hand (visual-motor) coordination problems, or is suspected of having one or more of these conditions, should be screened for ICS and/or a convergence disorder. This is especially true if the child scores over 30 on the Visual Skills survey in this web site.

Experts have long believed that the nervous systems are atypical (different) in dyslexic, ADD/ADHD, and other learning disabled individuals. The goal of vision therapy is to retrain the brain to function in a more typical manner so that the individual can learn in the same way as other children in the classroom.