Vision & Reading

Many people do not realise that it is possible to have excellent 20/20 sight but actually be living with a visual processing issue.

 

Imagine sitting down to read a book and within 30 seconds you feel your eyes become heavy and tired. You continue to push on and the words begin to look blurry and fuzzy. Then the lines on the page start to move up and down and all you feel like doing is going to sleep. You feel exhausted after reading only one page! Flipping over the page you rub your eyes and then you become frustrated because you need to re-read what you have just read. You were unable to accurately comprehend what was written.

 

This is how reading occurs for many people who are living with an undiagnosed visual processing issue.

 

Visual processing issues are complex but they can be resolved. They can be diagnosed after undertaking an eye test and a visual perception test. Depending on the type of issue diagnosed, regular vision therapy training sessions by a qualified vision therapist may be needed to help correct the issue. In many cases, it involves re-training the muscles in the eye using a combination of different prismatic lenses and exercises to help the eyes work together as a team. The ability to read and the ability to comprehend what is being read, are two different things. The ability to comprehend what is being read is actually a visual processing issue. It can be affected when the visual processing system is not working correctly.

 

Reading problems are all too often misconstrued by parents and teachers as laziness on the part of the student. They are not. They are simply symptomatic of a vision problem and once diagnosed, it is possible for it to be corrected.