Vision and Learning Disorders
Vision and Learning Disorders
Free 15-Minute Consults | 1-on-1 Care | Free Kids' Visual Screenings
Free 15-Minute Consults
1-on-1 Care
Free Kids' Visual Screenings
ADD/ADHD Support in Collegeville, PA
A visual disorder is often misdiagnosed as ADD or ADHD. Children may test with perfect 20/20 vision on a routine eye exam and still be suffering from a visual disorder. Children with convergence insufficiency tend to lose focus, avoid reading and writing, get frustrated and angry, and seem restless, as if they cannot pay attention to the work in front of them. This almost matches the exact symptoms of ADD/ADHD.
These children may not have a problem with attention span but cannot see the world the way others with better vision can. It can be difficult to identify this as at home, especially because symptoms often occur more frequently at school where visual tasks are more demanding. Also, many school eye exams are not comprehensive enough to diagnose a visual disability.
At the Vision Learning Center, we can provide help for patients who need ADD/ADHD support in NJ, PA, and DE. If your child has been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, bring them to the Vision Learning Center. They may just need to start vision therapy to help correct their convergence insufficiency.
Our vision therapy program utilizes the latest technologies and can help patients see more clearly, focus better, and live easier lives. Anyone looking for ADD/ADHD support in DE, PA, or NJ has the opportunity to benefit from vision therapy, but the younger a patient is the more effective the therapy is. Children have better neuroplasticity than adults, giving their brains the ability to learn new ways of operating.
To take advantage of the best ADD/ADHD support PA offers, contact the Vision Learning Center today. We offer free 15-minute consultations and free vision screenings for children.
Autism and Vision Problems
Autism is a neurobiological/developmental disorder where the patient has difficulty processing and responding to environmental input and stimuli. A child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has sensory integration problems and will display a series of symptoms and developmental disabilities characterized by social and communication impairments and repetitive behavior.
Vision is a neurological process that develops as your child grows, in much the same way as motor skills or speech development. Vision is the leader of all our senses and serves as the gateway to how our brains interact with them.
Most of your brain activity relies heavily on input from a properly developed visual system. Vision plays a large role in how we react to touch, movement and balance, all of which are key senses in ASD.
Some symptoms and behaviors of autism can be directly connected to visual problems, including:
- Difficulty maintaining visual attention
- Fleeting peripheral glances
- Lack of eye contact
- Poor hand-eye coordination
- Side viewing
- Staring at spinning objects or light
Any of these symptoms can be linked to one or many vision problems, including:
- Accommodative disorder or insufficiency
- Binocular problems
- An uncorrected refractive error like nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism or presbyopia
- Oculomotor dysfunction
Many behaviors of autism and ASD can be traced to visual inefficiencies and disorders. Because of this strong relationship between autism and ASD symptoms and vision developmental issues, vision therapy has played a key role in their treatment.
Vision therapy has been shown to reduce the frequency or intensity of many autistic and ASD behaviors. This may give your child more balance and freedom to be who they are. By focusing on strengthening a child’s vision and correcting these errors in development, here at Vision and Learning Center, we can significantly reduce the frequency or intensity of ASD and autism visual symptoms and behaviors.
Visual Processing
When your child passes the vision test at their checkup but doesn’t see the difference between a triangle and a square, their eyes aren’t the problem. The issue lies with their visual processing skills. If your child has been diagnosed with visual processing issues, or you think they might have them, there are ways to help.
Kids don’t outgrow visual processing issues, but there are options to help them compensate for their challenges.
When people think of eyesight, they usually think about 20/20 accurate vision, but vision is much more than that. The brain, not the eyes, processes the visual world, including symbols, pictures and distances. Weaknesses in these functions are called visual processing disorder or visual processing issues.
While there are ways to help children compensate for those weaknesses, visual processing issues present them with lifelong challenges. This is not considered a learning disability but is still common in kids who have learning issues.
Visual processing issues don’t just affect how a child learns, but also impact their ability to do ordinary things such as sorting socks or playing a simple game of kickball. Visual processing issues can also cause problems with socializing and self-esteem. Some children may even become frustrated and withdrawn.
Eight Types of Visual Processing Issues
Visual processing issues are complex because there are eight different types and people can have more than one of them at the same time. These issues often go undetected because they don’t really show up on vision tests. The different types of visual processing issues scientists have identified are:
- Visual discrimination issues: Kids with these issues have difficulty seeing the difference between two similar letters, shapes or objects.
- Visual figure-ground discrimination issues: Kids with these issues may not be able to pull out a shape or character from its background or may have trouble finding a specific piece of information on a page.
- Visual sequencing issues: Kids with these issues have difficulty telling the order of symbols, words or images. They may struggle to write answers on a separate sheet or skip lines when reading, and may also reverse or misread letters, numbers and words.
- Visual-motor processing issues: Kids with these issues have difficulty using the feedback from their eyes to coordinate the movement of other parts of the body.
- Long- or short-term visual memory issues: Kids with either of these issues have difficulty recalling what they’ve seen, which can cause them to struggle with reading and spelling. They may also have trouble remembering what they’ve read or issues using a calculator or keyboard.
- Visual-spatial issues: Kids with these issues have difficulty telling where objects are in space, including how far things are from them and each other. This also includes objects and characters described on paper or in a spoken narrative
- Visual closure issues: Kids with these issues have difficulty identifying an object when only parts of it are visible. For example, they may not recognize a truck if it’s missing wheels.
- Letter and symbol reversal issues: Kids with these issues switch letters or numbers when they are writing. Or they may make letter substitutions when reading after age 7. They also have trouble with letter formation that can affect reading, writing and math skills.
If your child is suffering from any of these problems, please call Vision and Learning Center at (610) 477-3794 for a FREE 15-minute consultation to determine if they are a good candidate for vision therapy.
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