Children with learning difficulties (like attention deficit disorder) often have difficulty with attention and concentration. This can result in trouble with reading, writing, comprehension, organization skills, and memory. It can also impact coordination, balance, and movement. Performance in school is often affected with a diagnosis of ADHD.
ADD & Vision Dysfunction
The eyes are often thought to be just like cameras that send information directly to the brain to see. This is a ‘myth’ about vision that can lead many professionals to the misunderstanding that because a child has clear vision, they have no difficulty with visual processing in the brain. Visual processing dysfunction in individuals with ADD is often caused by difficulties that occurred in child development.
Common Symptoms include:
- Loss of place when reading or reading words incorrectly or putting words in place of the correct word
- Eyestrain
- Headaches
- Losing focus
- Covering an eye if the is difficulty with alignment
- Poor posture causing leaning to the side or even placing their head on the table or arm when reading or writing
- Handwriting that lacks spacing or causes words to run into each other
- Handwriting that drifts off of the line
During childhood development, the brain’s visual process organizes through interaction with the motor system through movement. As Arnold Gesell MD, noted child development researcher and clinician stated, “Vision emanates (develops from) from an action system”. Through the early stages of development children learn to balance two separate visual processes. The first, called the spatial visual process process, is important organizing information for posture, balance and movement. It is the first process the child is born with and directly influences the spatial process.
The spatial visual process provides support for higher levels of visual processing that involve conscious thought and attention to detail. These higher levels are the focal process which is involved with detail and object recognition. This process is important for learning, but if it is not supported by the spatial visual process then the quality of learning at school and in life is significantly impacted.
ADHD & Coordination
Visual processing dysfunction can also affect coordination causing some children to appear clumsy and uncoordinated. Depending on the type of visual processing dysfunction, this can cause some children to appear coordinated but not be able to sit still for long periods of concentration in school. In these children, lack of movement disrupts the organization and balance between the two visual processes.
It is important to assess not just the child’s eyes for health and clearness of vision but to evaluate the functional visual skills as a representation of the balance in visual processing. For example, if a child is having difficulty with maintaining the alignment of the eyes when reading or writing, it is necessary to assess how the child is organizing the spatial visual process.
Neuro-Visual Processing Rehabilitation
Here at the Padula Institute of Vision, we emphasize the importance of understanding how a dysfunction in visual processing can cause difficulty with the visual skills necessary for using vision in learning. Those with ADHD or other learning difficulties can benefit from a neuro-visual evaluation. This exam is very different from a routine eye exam. Its purpose is to provide an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the spatial visual process and the neuro-motor system using a variety of tests. If you would like to learn more about what to expect during an exam, please click here.
The result of this comprehensive evaluation may lead to specific recommendations for one or more pairs of glasses for different activities. The glasses lenses may include prisms to affect posture, balance and movement. In addition, Neuro-Visual Postural Therapy ™ (NVPT) may be recommended in some cases to re-organize the spatial visual process that is causing the learning difficulties and/or difficulties with coordination. Another therapeutic aid that can be employed is bi-nasal occlusion. This involves placing two strips of opaque tape vertically on the part of each lens that is closest to the nose which serves to provide a vertical boundary in the visual environment and can anchor a dysfunctional vision process.
For many, dysfunction of the visual process can be a primary cause of the symptoms many experience. Treatment through neuro-optometric rehabilitation becomes an interdisciplinary approach that can maximize potentials in other therapies such as physical, occupation, speech, and cognitive therapies. Collaboration is often the key to successful rehabilitation.
The Padula Institute of Vision Rehabilitation
provides a patient-centered approach to evaluate each person’s individual imbalance in visual processing and will provide an individual direction for rehabilitation based on each person’s needs and abilities.
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