Vision therapy is a variety of visual and motor activities planned specifically for an individual by a supervising optometrist to develop efficient visual skills and processing.
But how do you know if vision therapy is the correct treatment for you or your child?
A vision therapy evaluation must be completed in order to determine if the program is the right route and can better you or your child’s condition.
But what does a vision therapy evaluation comprise of and what should you expect when you walk into our office?
What is a vision therapy evaluation?
The first thing done is a general vision exam in order to assess the overall health and refractive error of the patient.
This is done to ensure that the external and internal eye health, peripheral vision and color vision of the patient is normal and that there is no underlying eye pathology that is causing their visual issues.
Visual acuity, or the sharpness of sight, is also measured. This allows the doctors to quantify the amount of blur the patient sees and have a general idea of where the patient is at.
Then, the refractive error is determined. This refers to the optical condition that causes blurred vision, like near or farsightedness (myopia and hyperopia, respectively), and allows the doctors to check to see if the patient needs glasses.
The next portion of the vision therapy evaluation is the visual efficiency evaluation. This checks the “mechanics” of the eye and see how well the eye muscles move, focus and work together as a team. The three things the doctors look out for are:
Visual Efficiency:
- Ocular mobility
- Accommodation
- Binocularity.
Ocular mobility is how well the eyes can follow a moving target and how accurately they can jump from one target to the next. This is an important skill to check because it is the tracking skill used in reading.
The second component of the visual efficiency evaluation is accommodation. Accommodation is when your eyes are able to change its focus to different viewing distances.
The patient is tested to determine how accurately the focusing muscles of the eyes work, how long he/she is able to hold their focus and how quickly his/her eyes can readjust from near-to-far distances and vice versa.
Binocularity is how the two eyes work together to allow a person to see a clear, single image and allows him/her to perceive depth perception. Any issues with one’s binocularity ability will result in double vision, so tests will be done to detect any deficiencies in that area.
The last section of the evaluation is the visual information processing evaluation.
We use standardized tests to compare the child’s performance against how other children his/her age perform.
The tests allow the doctors to assess how his/her brain processes and understands the visual information that the eyes are seeing.
The skills the doctors are evaluating for during this section are:
Visual Information Processing
- Laterality
- Directionality
- Visual memory
- Visual-motor integration
- Visual analysis.
Laterality refers to the ability to distinguish between right and left on oneself and understanding the idea of mirror images on others.
This is different from directionality, which is the idea of understanding correct orientation of objects and letters.
Visual memory is also assessed, which provides the doctors with an idea of how well the patient can look at an image and retain a “mental picture” in his/her head.
Visual-motor integration gauges how well the eye and body communicate to make accurate and precise movements, from large body movements to fine motor skills.
Lastly, there is visual analysis. Visual analysis is an umbrella term that encompasses various subskills that helps one to interpret, understand, problem solve, and make assumptions about visual images.
This concept can be further broken down into 5 subskills. The terms and their description are as follows:
Visual Analysis
- Discrimination: The ability to identify and match shapes, letters, etc.
- Spatial relations: The ability to detect differences in direction of similar images
- Form constancy: The ability to comprehend that objects of various sizes/orientations have the same meaning
- Figure ground: The ability to identify a certain image while ignoring the background
- Visual closure: The ability to put together a visual image to form a complete picture
This portion is most often recommended for children struggling in school or having difficulties reading.
The visual efficiency and visual information processing evaluations are an hour each. A parent conference is scheduled for 1 week later with both parents to go over the results of the evaluation.
It is very important for both the mother and father to be present at the conference because we want everyone to be on board and to be on the same page.
The parents will receive a detailed report with our recommendations.
There are a lot of components involved in a vision therapy evaluation. We want to cover all the bases and come up with the best plan that will most benefit your child.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact our office, at (714) 486-3315, or make an appointment online to schedule a vision therapy evaluation.
Our office is proud of the fun and kind environment we create for our patients and parents. We are great with kids and create activities specifically for each child that fits their personality and likes. The doctors are always available to answer questions and want everybody involved to feel comfortable with the entire process. We take pride in building a very quality therapy program and we won’t feel accomplished until your child becomes a vision therapy Jedi master!
Where is Insight Vision Center Optometry?
Serving the communities of Costa Mesa, Irvine, Newport Beach, Tustin, Santa Ana, Huntington Beach, and Fountain Valley. Schedule a visit with Dr. Valerie Lam or Dr. Thanh Mai to learn more. Our optometry practice is located in Costa Mesa at 3151 Airway Ave. Suite J2, Costa Mesa, CA 92626. We offer vision therapy and orthokeratology services.
