Vision Therapy

TeamHope’s vision therapy is an individualized treatment program designed and supervised by our Occupational Therapists. Programs are designed to correct visual motor, ocular motor and/or perceptual cognitive deficiencies.
There are a variety of causes for these deficiencies such as:

• Inadequate sensorimotor development
• Injury to the nervous system (i.e. closed head trauma, birth trauma, birth injury, etc.)
• Hereditary factors.

Observable clues that can indicate visual difficulties may include:

• Eyes that cross or turn, even a little bit
• Tilting, turning the head, covering or closing an eye in order to use only one eye.
• Looking at things out of the corner or side of the eyes.
• Blinking, grimacing, squinting or other compensating behaviors.
• Visual stimulation behaviors: finger flicking, obsession with spinning, patterns, or other visual effects; sighting along linear objects (counter edges, telephone wires, table tops, etc.).
• Short attention span, avoidance of close work and activities.
• Low frustration level, irritability, nausea, car sickness and light sensitivity.
• Seems bright but struggles with reading.
• Fatigues quickly when reading, with frequent signs of frustration.
• In unable to sit still cannot stay on task for any length of time.
• Reverses words, numbers, letters.
• Has difficulty remembering spelling words.
• Is disorganized and frustrated when studying visual information.
• Has poor reading comprehension.
• Has difficulty copying from the board or book, has sloppy handwriting.
• Medication or tutoring has not been successful in improving school performance.
• Has been labeled Learning Disabled, ADD, ADHD or Dyslexic.
• Problems moving in space, often bumps into things or drops things.
• Poor eye-hand coordination (visual/motor skills)

Vision therapy is another form of neurological/rehabilitative therapy. The objective of vision therapy is to re-train the patient’s brain, via the visual modality, to effectively receive information, comprehend it, and react appropriately.

Vision therapy can benefit children with learning disabilities as vision and sensorimotor deficits may result in: eyestrain; headaches; blurred vision; double vision; loss of place while reading; difficulty maintaining attention; aversion to reading; reading comprehension deficits; difficulty with writing assignments, letter reversals, spacing issues, etc. As many as 70% of the children within special education, learning disabled, and remedial reading populations, have a significant visual component to their learning problems.

TeamHope features state of the art technology and software programs administered by our Occupational Therapists to address issues of eye teaming (binocular vision), focusing, fusional and convergence skills, saccadic skills, and perceptual-cognitive skills. Your child’s treatment program will be specifically designed based on their profile. Typically therapy programs range in duration from 3 months to 2 years.

A vision therapy treatment session would concentrate on enhancing the brain’s ability to control eye alignment, eye movements, focusing abilities, and binocular vision. Visual motor and graphomotor skills are targeted through the use of specialized computer programs, vestibular exercises and pen/paper tasks. During the final stages of therapy, the patient’s newly acquired visual skills are reinforced and made automatic through repetition and integration with motor and cognitive skills.

Please contact the office if you are interested in scheduling a screening.