VISION THERAPY
WHAT IS VISION THERAPY?
Vision therapy is an individualised program of planned sequential activities designed to enhance development or rehabilitate visual function and visual perceptual performance. Therapy may be home based or in-office.
Vision as a process develops. The sequences of normal growth, experiences and actions over time, become integrated into the total action systems of each person, developing automated programs (schemata) for action, including posture, coordination, personality and intelligence. Vision development may therefore be adversely or positively influenced by strengths and weakness in the underlying schemata. Delayed emergence of abilities during the sequences of normal growth may result in a visual dysfunction, or lack of visual competence, to gather and process information. Sometimes these problems cause symptoms like headaches, sore eyes, tired eyes, along with postural compensations, resulting in reduced comfort, efficiency, productivity and stamina. Many children with developmental delays and/or learning difficulties can be struggling in part because of undiagnosed visual efficiency abilities or visual processing problems. They may present with difficulties such as keeping their place reading, poor eye hand coordination, messy writing, difficulty learning left from right and reversal of letters or numbers, mistaking similar words, and difficulty with comprehension. These children often respond better orally. These conditions benefit from the attention of a Behavioural Optometrist, whose focus is advanced competence in the development and function of the visual process. Behavioural Optometrists are trained to diagnose developmental or acquired visual problems, and while the ability to see clearly is a part of that process, the visual process is about efficiently acquiring information that allows us to derive meaning and direct our actions. The most common and most clinically proven option for these kinds of problems is vision therapy. Lenses are often prescribed in conjunction with vision therapy to guide development along with for preventative and therapeutic reasons.
Vision therapy is a program of planned sequential activities for actively training the visual process to develop or rehabilitate efficient neurological patterns of visual behaviour. Vision therapy, provided by a Behavioural Optometrist, would often include the therapeutic use of lenses. Vision therapy is not eye exercises. Vision therapy is neurological pattern (schemata) development. Even obvious eye teaming problems, those where you see someone who has one eye that appears not to be aiming with the other eye, are rarely muscle problems. Most visual efficiency or perceptual difficulties result from delayed or inappropriate neurological development in how a person uses their vision. The primary purpose of vision therapy is to help the brain learn how to use vision more effectively, enabling vision to become the most efficient and dominant sensory information process. Vision therapy programs seek to helix efficient patterns that integrate all sensory and movement processes of the body. This promotes continued development of the visual process, which is necessary for us to keep up with the changing demands we all face over the course of our lives.
Vision therapy, also known as visual training, is a program of activities that help a person engage in, observe, learn about, and change the way they are using their visual process. Although vision therapy is often referred to as “eye exercises” vision therapy is much more than that. It is possible to retrain the brain with vision therapy by setting up the proper conditions, and using the appropriate language, equipment, and perhaps most important of all – lenses. The eyes and their supporting muscles do what the brain's schemata or 'software patterns' tells them to do. When the visual process is not working efficiently or poorly, it is because there is a difficulty in development or the person has acquired a disruption to the 'software patterns' within the brain. That is, the brain is not gathering or processing visual information accurately. This in turn causes errors in the output. Vision is primarily a process involved with output. Output can consist of thought, relating information through spoken or written language or some other type of bodily movement.
Many problems in visual processing stem from delays or glitches in visual development. The visual process develops throughout our lives, or at least it is supposed to. Many people struggle as a result of visual developmental delays without even realizing it. Behavioural Optometrists are focused upon being able to connect the dots required to properly diagnose these conditions.
