Sep 12, 2018

Children Binocular Vision

Children Binocular Vision

All children 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. The critical period of vision development is from birth to 9 years old.

In learning to walk, a child begins by creeping, crawling, standing, walking with assistance, and finally walking unaided. A similar learning process takes place in the development of good visual skills.

Visual skills build on one another, step by step, as children grow. Efficient and good visual skills are important for learning, working, and even sports. Missing a step will lead to deficiency in visual skills, which may adversely affect academic performance.

At Chan Visual Care, we take vision development very seriously whenever we see children. We recommend a yearly comprehensive eye exam at age 3, and a baseline binocular vision assessment at age 5.

Binocular Vision Assessment

At Chan Visual Care , our binocular vision assessment for children includes the following skills:

• Accommodation. The strength, flexibility, and accuracy
of the eye focusing system. Deficits in accommodation
will result in blurry vision during near work, blurry vision
when transitioning from near to distance tasks (such as
copying notes from the board in school),
and eye strain or fatigue.
• Fusion. The ability to use both eyes together.
Fusional deficit will either cause double vision or the
brain to suppress (or ignore) one of the eyes which may
lead to a lazy eye. This can happen 100% of the time or
intermittently, depending on the cause of fusion deficit.
• Tracking. The accuracy for both eyes to fixate on and
follow objects accurately. Poor tracking skills may lead to
problems when reading.
• Vergence. The ability of both eyes to work and move
together as a team. Inefficient vergence may cause
double vision or suppression of one eye, and it may affect
to ability to achieve high level depth perception.

• Visual Stress and Meares- Irlen Syndrome :

Approximately 20% of the population report these problems when looking at a page of words- even when wearing any glasses they have been prescribed. The condition is known as Meares- Irlen syndrome or Visual Stress.
In many cases the discomfort can be reduced by using a coloured overlay ( a sheet of colored overlay acetate placed over the page) or by wearing tinted glasses.

Visual training/ Optometric Vision Therapy/ Behavioral Optometrist

After a comprehensive eye examination and a binocular vision assessment, we may prescribe visual training or Optometric Vision Therapy to improve, enhance, or remedy any visual skills that are deemed inadequate.

At Chan Visual Care, our visual training will involve a combination of one on one training with our staff and also visual training exercises. This combination is proven to be more efficient in improving any deficient visual skills.

If you find your child to have any of the symptoms listed below, please contact our office for an assessment. Remember, the critical age to improve visual skills is before 9 years old.

Signs of Vision Difficulty:

• Holding a book very close.
• The head moves back and forth while reading,
instead of the eyes.
• Finger is used to trace sentences in book to avoid
skipping words or lines.
• Complaints of blurred, or double vision.
• Complaints of headaches.
• Short attention span when reading, or quickly fatigued.
• Homework takes much longer than it should.