Doctors Vision Centre - Stonewall

by secure_admin | Apr 30, 2019 | Vision therapy

Vision therapy is a precise process using cutting edge techniques and activities based on the latest neuroscience. But don’t worry—it’s our job to boil all that science down into results. Your job is to commit to the journey and get ready for your life to change.

While we don’t ask patients to understand the logistics behind vision therapy programs, many are still curious about how it works.

There are a few things you might be wondering about vision therapy.

On this page, we’ll give a brief overview of the four stages of our vision therapy programs and the nuts and bolts of what it’s like to be a patient at our clinic.

Let’s get started!

The Three Stages of Our Vision Therapy Programs

Here are the four stages we move through as part of our proven process:

Stage 1: Building the Foundation

In vision therapy, the first step is to develop foundational skills.  That means developing and refining gross motor skills using visually guided movements. The eyes tell the body what to do and where to go.

What makes us different:  Our programs incorporate Primitive Reflex activities.  Primitive Reflexes begin before you are born. They are repetitive, involuntary movements in response to a stimulus. They are essential for a baby to learn how to control their head, how to mesh sounds with vision with movement, and how to develop into a fully functioning human. Each stage of development (rolling, crawling, walking, etc) is affected by the timely integration of primitive reflexes.  When primitive reflexes haven’t integrated within the appropriate time frame, it is important to revisit the missing developmental stages.  Few clinics tackle primitive reflexes, but they’re a big deal—and we’re experts.

What causes primitive reflexes to be retained?

There are many reasons which may cause primitive reflexes to remain “active”.

Retained primitive reflexes may be the result of:

Stress of the mother and/or baby during pregnancy (birth trauma, breech birth, Cesarean birth, induced birth)

Lack of movement in utero (due to low amniotic fluid, for example)

When infants spend extended time in car seats/carriers, walkers, which restrict movements that are required for healthy brain development.

Children and adults can experience symptoms from retained reflexes.  Reflexes that are integrated may become reactivated later by injury, trauma, illness or stress.

Retained reflexes affect vision and learning

When primitive reflexes haven’t been integrated within the appropriate time frame, it is important to revisit the missing developmental stages.  These movement activities will help rebuild the foundation and create new pathways in the brain.  A primitive reflex integration program involves specific movement patterns that make it possible to retrain the brain.

As we enter a school setting, a new set of learning skills requires strong functional vision skills.  More than 80% of classroom learning comes from our eyes. When you have an eye exam and they say you have 20/20 vision, this is only one part of our visual system.  How our brain interprets the information coming through our eyes (visual processing) is the result of a very complex visual system.  Eye tracking, eye teaming and focusing are all part of this complex system.

Five reflexes that affect vision

Although there are many primitive reflexes, we choose to focus on the five reflexes that directly affect the visual system.

Moro Reflex

Affects vestibular, ocular motor and visual perceptual problems.

Symptoms include:

• Exaggerated startle reflex
• Dislike of change or surprise
• Eye movement and visual processing problems
• Motion sickness
• Poor balance or eye-hand coordination
• Light sensitivity
• Difficulty with black print on white paper
• Tires easily under fluorescent lighting
• Tense muscle tone
• Often in “Fight or Flight” mode

Symmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (STNR)

Affects fixation, focusing from near to far, and crossing midline.

Symptoms include:

• Poor posture
• Tendency to slump when sitting, particularly at a desk/table
• Difficulty tracking and/or catching a ball
• Poor balance and depth perception
• Difficulty swimming
• Poor eye-hand coordination
• Difficulties with adjusting focus from distance to near
• Learning problems
• Anchors feet behind chair while sitting
• “W” position when sitting on the floor
• Difficulty aligning numbers for math problems

Tonic Labyrinthe Reflex (TLR)

Affects ocular motor, muscle tone, balance, and auditory discrimination.

Symptoms include:

• Poor posture and/or stooping
• Weak muscle tone
• Stiff or jerky movements
• Toe walking
• Poor balance
• Dislike of sports, physical education class, and running
• Eye movement, visual perceptual, and spatial problems
• Motion sickness
• Poor coordination
• Poor sequencing skills
• Poor sense of time
• Poor organization skills
• Fear of heights

Spinal Galant Reflex

Affects the ability to sit still; concentration problems, short-term memory, and bedwetting.

Symptoms include:

• Bedwetting
• Fidgety or wiggly (especially when sitting)
• Sensory issues with waistbands/tags in clothing or food texture
• Poor concentration
• Poor short-term memory

Asymmetrical Tonic Neck Reflex (ATNR)

Affects midline issues, balance, eye tracking, handwriting, and laterality.

Symptoms include:

• Poor balance when moving head side to side
• Homolateral (same side) instead of cross-pattern movements (marching, skipping, walking)
• Focusing problems (especially when switching from distance to near)
• Difficulty keeping place when copying
• Difficulty crossing the midline
• Difficulty learning to ride a bicycle
• Poor pursuits (smooth eye movements)
• Difficulty catching a ball
• Poor handwriting

Stage 2: Visual Input Skills

Next, we dive into functional vision skills.  These include tracking (the way eyes move across a page), focusing (the ability to make things clear while reading and to  efficiently shift focus from near to far, and far to near), and eye teaming (eyes that work together).  In order to read efficiently, catch a baseball, ride a bike, and do a host of other things, our eyes need to move, focus, and work together properly.

Stage 3: Visual Processing

These skills include visual memory (what did I just see?), visual sequential memory (how do I spell that word?), visual closure (if I only see part of a word can I figure out what it is) and visual discrimination (learning to see what is the same or different). Your brain knows the difference between a “b” and a “d,” but what if your eyes and brain aren’t communicating properly?  That’s where visual processing skills come in. The world is an easier place to live in when your eyes and brain are on the same page.

*****

Good eyesight does not equal good vision.

Even people with 20/20 eyesight can have vision problems. People can have a normal body temperature, and still have a problem.

Surprised?  You’re not alone.

Eyesight and vision are fundamentally different skills and having 20/20 eyesight is not enough.  School screenings typically check for visual acuity (20/20) only and do not screen for functional vision skills required for reading and learning.

How the brain and eyes work together – vision – has a significant impact on the learning process for both children and adults.

Imagine sitting in a classroom taking notes and fighting a focusing problem that won’t allow you to change your focus from near to far and back again quickly enough to keep up with the instructor.

As the day progresses the visual system is stressed, and words can start to look like this:

Can you imagine trying to read when everything appears double? It often gets worse as the day wears on and your eyes get more tired.  Some people cover an eye, turn their head or tip it to the side to avoid double vision.

Even worse, imagine trying to read a paragraph where the letters and words appear to moving while you are trying to read them!

These are just a few of the symptoms of functional vision problems that are treatable through vision therapy.  Now, let’s talk about the 4 visual skills necessary for learning.

Functional Vision involves 4 visual skills necessary for learning

Tracking

The ability to move our eyes across the printed page smoothly and effortlessly.

Focusing

Our eyes and brain work together to calculate how much “power” is needed at certain distances, so that we can maintain accurate focusing power throughout the task, whether near or far and can easily switch focus from near to far.

Eye Teaming

The ability of the brain to localize objects at the correct distance so the lines of sight from both eyes intersect at the object.

Visual Perceptual Skills

This includes understanding what we see, identifying it, judging its importance and relating it to previously stored information in the brain.  For example, recognizing words and discriminating between a “b” and “d”.

Many children and adults do not realize that their struggles in the classroom and/or workplace are linked to functional vision.

Are they smart but something is holding them back?  Are they working tremendously hard but not getting anything out of it?

Poor functional vision skills can have a detrimental effect on classroom performance, self-esteem, and behavior.  One out of four children has a functional vision problem that is interfering with their ability to achieve.

With proper diagnosis and treatment, reading levels improve significantly, comprehension increases and even sports performance can improve.  We can help, and we get results.