What is Vision Therapy?
Optometric vision therapy, sometimes called vision therapy or VT, is that part of optometric care devoted to developing, improving and enhancing people's visual performance.
Behavorial optometrists use vision therapy to:
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Prevent vision and eye problems from developing |
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Develop the visual skills needed to achieve more effectively at school, work or play |
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Enhance functioning on tasks demanding sustained visual effort |
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Remediate or compensate for vision and eye problems which have already developed |
Vision: A Set of Abilities
Nearly all people are born with the potential for good eyesight, but vision - the ability to identify, interpret and understand what is seen - is learned and developed, starting from birth.
Developing visual skills includes learning to use both eyes together effectively. Having both eyes move, align, fixate and focus as a team enhances your ability to interpret and understand the potential visual information that is available to you.
What Are Visual Skills
The visual skills which can be developed and enhanced through vision therapy include:
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Tracking |
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Binocularity |
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Fixation |
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Maintaining Attention |
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Focus Change |
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Near Vision Acuity |
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Depth Perception |
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Distance Acuity |
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Peripheral Vision |
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Visualization |
Visual Skills / Visual Stress
If a person's visual skills are not adequately developed, or a person fails to coordinate vision with other senses, vision problems may occur. With poor binocularity, for example, one eye may locate an object in one place while the other eye locates it in another. The confusing signals may result in:
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Headaches |
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Nearsightedness |
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Double Vision |
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Farsightedness |
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Reduced Performance |
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Strabismus |
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Discomfort, Fatigue |
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Amblyopia |
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Suppression |
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Astigmatism |
Vision therapy, usually combined with appropriate lenses, may remedy, improve or prevent any of these conditions in both children and adults.
Studies show that success in vision therapy depends on an appropriate program prescribed by your optometrist, and on an individual patient's cooperation, participation and motivation.
Beyond Visual Performance
Vision therapy has also proven to be remarkably effective tool in helping people with learning-related visual problems. Many problems in learning to read and write are made worse by poorly developed visual skills.
Dozens of experimental programs involving thousands of children and adults demonstrate that when visual skills are enhanced through vision therapy, learning is easier, reading levels rise, and in some cases, IQ scores have increased.
Building visual skills also increases the ability to visualize, conceptualize and to create.
To schedule a consultation, please call us at (562)988-2020 or click here.
