Vision Therapy - 
 What is it?   How can it help my child?

Vision Therapy is a personalised program of activities prescribed by your Behavioural Optometrist. It is not just 'eye exercises' - the goal of Vision Therapy is not to strengthen eye muscles, eye muscles are already very strong.  Vision Therapy aims to retrain the learned aspects of vision through neuroplasticity - we are in fact, retraining the brain and the way that the information that the brain receives from the eyes is processed and acted upon.  

Vision Therapy aims to helps patients to develop or improve fundamental visual skills and abilities, and improve visual comfort, ease and efficiency.   To a child that is struggling in the classroom, this can mean helping or eliminating headaches, blurred or double vision, improving performance when reading or writing and finishing a day at school without being exhausted and upset.

The Vision Therapy program is often delivered in a variety of formats which can involve using therapeutic lenses, prism lenses, occluders or patches, balance boards, a specially devised computer program and special tools and products designed or adapted for Vision Therapy activities.

Some typical Vision Therapy activities are:

  • Cross-pattern walking
  • Finger thinking games
  • Map Making
  • Matching with blocks
  • Bug on a string

These activities are primarily done with a trained Vision Therapist in the practice and then done again at home.  For best results, Vision Therapy must be done regularly and frequently and this includes doing the activities at home. As the patient works through the activities they will be challenged and have some difficulty with many of them - but this is part of the process. Hard work and persistence will pay off and the patient will learn how to have better control over their eyes and an improved understanding of what they are seeing and reading.  Many times this then leads to improved confidence and an increase in performance at school. 

For more information about our Vision Therapy program or if you think that your child would benefit from a Behavioural Optometry Assessment, please contact us for an initial appointment.