Learning Related Vision Problems

The Importance of Good Vision And Learning

Vision is so important to the early learning process, that any visual deficits or issues need to be resolved as young as possible to lessen the impact on the child's academic progress. According to Optometrist.org 80 percent of all learning comes through visual pathways and yet the American Optometric Association (AOA), found that 25% of children have a major vision problem that affects their learning.

There are many learning methods used to teach children who are sight-impaired or blind, but mainstream schooling depends largely on vision for full comprehension and participation.

Essential Skills To Help Learning

Children use visual perceptual skills to make sense of what they see. Our eyes send visual information to the brain which interprets information and makes sense of everything. There are different visual perception skills that all work together to help your child learn to read and write.

 The May Institute lists four essential visual skills to aid learning

• Visual Tracking: This is the ability to follow a moving object with the eyes. This is crucial when tracking a ball during sports, following the text while reading, or watching a movie with friends
• Visual Perception: This is the ability to make sense of what we see. i.e. recognizing shapes, identifying patterns, and distinguishing between letters and numbers
• Depth Perception: This is the ability to judge the relative distance between objects, this helps with catching a ball, navigating busy areas, or how to safely use gym equipment.
• Visual Discrimination: The ability to differentiate between similar objects or symbols based on visual features such as size, shape, colour, or orientation. This skill is especially important for reading and writing – enabling children to tell the difference between letters like "b" and "d" or finding the right item in a cluttered drawer.

There can be a number of reasons a child has difficulty focusing or learning at school, being far-sighted, near-sighted, or having astigmatism can make reading the blackboard difficult, and reading books can also be a problem as the printed words can appear as nothing but a blur in front of a child with uncorrected vision problems. The proper corrective lenses will correct the error immediately and give the child crisp, clear vision. If glasses aren't needed or don't address the issue completely, speak with their teacher or your family doctor as other factors may play a part.

Learning-Related Vision Problems

It is important for parents, educators, and counselors to beware of vision-related issues that can affect a child's ability to learn, as they can be alert for the signs and symptoms, as getting the child's eyes checked and vision corrected may be all that is need to help the child in the classroom.

It is easy to assume a child's short attention span is a bigger issue than just the fact their vision is poor and that can to see whats written on a blackboard or see the words in a book clearly enough to read them. The earlier a vision problem is found and corrected or adapted to, the less the child's education will suffer as a result.

Three main types of learning-related vision problems:-

• Refractive Errors -  As mentioned above, nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism can all affect a child ability to see and focus on tasks at school. These are easily identified and corrected with glasses, contact lenses or even laser surgery. However, other refractive errors can exist that are a bit harder to diagnose and may pass unnoticed until the child begins to struggle.
  More uncommon but still widespread refractive errors are often called higher-order aberrations. These conditions can cause vision problems such as double vision, seeing halos around lights, blurring, glare, or starburst patterns. It's not uncommon for these signs to be passed off as an overactive imagination, if your child complains of these or more visual problems, they should have their vision checked.

• Functional Vision Issues - The eyes communicate with the brain and the brain controls the eyes. In a typical child, the eyes will follow one another in a pairing called binocularity. The eyes will also focus automatically and perform fine movements for close work and reading. In people with a learning-related vision problem, these unconscious communications between the brain and eyes may be compromised. Deficits in these areas can cause:
  Blurry or smeared vision
  Eye strain and dryness
  Painful headaches or even migraines or cluster headaches

• Problems With Perceptual Vision - Typically, our eyes and brain work together to focus on important objects, disregard unimportant information, and recognise objects and words we've seen in the past. Being unable to use perception properly can greatly impact a child's education and can make vision therapy a necessity for reaching his or her full potential.

Also prevalent but to a lesser extent:-

• Colour blindness. Colour blindness is extremely common and it doesn't necessarily have to have much of an impact on a child's education or learning ability. Most optometrists will screen children for colour blindness at a young age, so may the school nurse. Your child should ideally be screened before they attend nursery school, as many activities involve colour matching and recognition. There are many types of colour blindness, and you can read more about colour blindness here.

Early Signs Of  Vision Problems In Children

There are several different signs a child can display that can indicate to parents, educators, and family members that something may be amiss with their vision. Here are some potential signs and symptoms you should be aware of:-

• Complaints of headaches - Young children may hold their head and cry if they aren't old enough to articulate their discomfort.
• Squinting a lot - Turning the head to one side constantly, or closing one eye frequently when looking at things or trying to focus. These can be signs that a child's brain is trying to compensate for poor vision. If one eye is much stronger than the other, the brain will want to ignore the inferior information being given by the weaker eye.
• Reading very slowly -  Losing their place a lot, or having poor reading comprehension. Your child may also follow the words with their finger while reading. All of these can be signs that reading is difficult for some reason, this could be related to a vision issue.
• Problems with recognizing shapes or drawing them from memory - Most children are very visually oriented. If your child is not, it may be a sign that their vision is deficient.
• Poor coordination, especially hand-eye coordination -  If your child took longer than expected to learn to guide a spoon to their mouth or to pick up objects from a table reliably, vision problems may be to blame.
• A short attention span for visual activities - If your child is turning away, wandering off during exciting, colourful movies, or isn't at all interested in beautiful nature scenes, poor vision may be to blame. Of course, some children have their own preferences, but a lack of interest or a short attention span for anything visual can point to an issue.

Many of these symptoms can be completely normal, so it's important not to panic if you notice them. Make an appointment with your optometrist so your child's vision can be evaluated before you become over-concerned. It's possible your child just learns at a different rate from others or has individual differences that will resolve on their own as they age.

Treatment Options for Learning-Related Vision Problems

You need over 17 visual skills to succeed in reading, learning, sports, and life.  Being able to see 20/20 is just one of those visual skills; when deficiencies in the others cannot be treated adequately with glasses, contact lenses, and/or patching, they are best resolved through a program of vision training.

Your optometrist may suggest Orthoptic Exercises, these are specific exercises to help coordinate the movement of both eyes, they can be taught by your optometrist or orthoptist,  and carried out at home, the more regularly they are carried out the better the outcome. Alternatively, Vision Therapy may be recommended.

Orthoptic Exercises may include

• Smooth Convergence - This exercise is usually done using a pen or a small target on a lollipop stick which will be provided by your optometrist.
• Dot Card - This exercise is carried out with a specialist piece of card containing dots at regular intervals, this will be provided by your optometrist
• Stereograms - A stereogram has two incomplete images, which when joined will make one complete image. This may be seen in 3D, depending on which stereogram is used.

Vision Therapy

Vision therapy is a customisable and personalised treatment programme delivered by an eye specialist to strengthen visual skills. As a result, vision therapy is tailored differently for each individual and can include a range of techniques to retrain and improve the visual issues.

You can check out an easy to follow YouTube clip on eye exercises here, however, we always advise speaking to your optometrist before relying fully on these types of exercises to make sure you are performing the correct Orthoptic Exercises to help your specific vision needs

Having perfect vision is only one part of your child's ability to learn and discover the world around them, if you have any concerns about your child's vision or learning skills, please speak with the school nurse, optometrist, or teacher.