Your Child Underperforms? Maybe The Cause is a Vision Problem
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010People with reading difficulties usually have higher than average problems in visual cognition, including visual stress, adjustments insufficiency, depth of field instability and several others, according to a Grand Blanc MI optometrist. Some defects are not readily detected because other aspects of the visual acuity may be within average ranges during tests, so that the effects of these defects are ascribed to other causes such as tiredness, stress, and physical sicknesses or ailments. Likewise any Sandusky MI optometrist can explain to you diabetes mellitus, for example, may be a critical influence in vision troubles, so that it is frequently pointed at as the root of such vision problems. Which, of course, is not necessarily true in all cases.
Fortunately, vision impairment due to damage of tissues is not common in children, and no proof has been found to connect visual impairment with reading difficulties such as dyslexia. Nevertheless, the signs may be interpreted as neurological signs, in that their sudden manifestation should point the optometrist to different possible causes, especially when attended by variation in the general health status of the child.
Visual keenness
A lot of kids who have learning difficulties have reduced visual acuity, commonly distinguished by blurred vision or duplicated vision. Yet being inexperienced about these matters, a good part of them do not even know they have impaired vision, until others tell them so. For many, a simple remedial lenses is commonly adjust the refractive errors of the eyes, and they enhance in their performance.
Moreover, other defects like strabismus or amblyopia are often adjusted by sensory changes, where the other eye motor muscles counteract the errors. In strabismus, for example, visual use may be centered only on one eye which, though possible to reduce binocular vision, may also improve reading ability.
Binocular unsteadiness, accommodative issues
This defect is characterized by the movement of three-dimensional vision, commonly focusing and blurring the object looked at. A study showed that about 15% of dyslexic children have binocular instability, while it happens only about 5% to children of normal vision. Similar to this is accommodative impairment, when the eye cannot focus as fast as normal or at all when shifting from looking at distant items to the near ones. However, this last defect may also be caused by non-optometric reasons, such as temporary memory slips.
Conclusion
Because such ‘minor’ imperfections in a child’s visual acuity might not be immediately discernible, it is best to have the child’s eyes tested when the signs are detected, or the manifestations are discerned. Underachievement in school might only be one of these manifestations, and others could be from difficulties in seeing things to propensity to err in vision-related activities. It is likewise advised to take these vision-problematic individuals to the right experts, those with the specialized background and capabilities to make detailed and technical examinations to detect these visual imperfections.
Dealing with any defect found either by treatment or correction can help the suffering patient to achieve more in all aspects of his life. Vision is one of the senses that is plainly the most devastating to lose.
