Conditions We Treat

Understanding Vision

Vision is much more than 20/20 eye sight. Good functional vision involves clarity of vision along with the following:

• Focusing – changing focus near to far, or maintaining near focus for extended periods of time
• Eye tracking – accurate movement of the eyes, which is essential in reading and sports
• Binocular vision – eye-teaming: both eyes pointing together at the correct place in space
  • Double vision is a condition that is often overlooked, but can cause serious avoidance of near work (reading)!
  • Strabismus, or an eye turn, is a binocular vision problem which can be treated with vision therapy
  • Amblyopia, or lazy eye, is also a binocular vision problem which can be treated with vision therapy
• Visual perception – a big category that includes the following:
  • Visual discrimination, or “just noticeable differences”
  • Visual memory
  • Visual sequential memory – remembering a series of objects, letters or numbers
  • Visual figure ground – such as hidden pictures, or finding an object in a busy room, or even attending to the teacher when the room is full of distractions
  • Visual closure – seeing part of the information and inferring the rest of it
• Body knowledge – understanding where I am in space
• Bilateral integration – coordinated movement of both sides of the body
• Space awareness – understanding where things are in space
• Eye-hand coordination – letting vision guide your movement, which is essential for proper handwriting and sports activities
• Vestibular / balance – helping the visual system be the “top dog” of the vestibular triad, which helps with motion sickness, car sickness and head injury rehabilitation