Can my Child Be Helped by a Behavioural Optometrist?

A behavioural optometrist may very well be the person you are looking for to help your child if they're struggling with learning disabilities.

They have an interest in children, notably those that are fighting learning problems. These types of children most frequently present reduced concentration for all their school work, and most frequently have delayed development of the important skills that they need to perform properly in school.

But the great news is that a behavioural optometrist may help in both concentration and skills using a mixture of reading glasses and vision therapy.

A Behavioural Optometrist Can Assist Focus

It is often thought that all an optometrist is helpful for is helping a child to see. But my sort of practice can do much more, because the most common symptom I see is decreased concentration in children, not sore eyes, headaches or even blur. These different signs can occur, that's for sure, but poor concentration for reading and near tasks is by far the most common symptom.

This happens because the stress induced on a child's visual systen as they try to read and learn causes the focusing and eye coordination mechanisms within the eye to stress out and eventually break down. If looking at reading is tense for a child, they either do the work and undergo eyestrain, headaches and sore eyes, or simpy not do it… that is, stop concentrating!

In a behavioural practice we can prescribe support lenses to help reading or vision therapy that may imrpove concentration for a child. For many frustrated parents it is a dream come true, however there may be way more that a behavioural optometrist can do to help a child with learning disabilities.

A Behavioural Optometrist Can Help Studying

A child learning to read should develop certain skills to do the job properly. Skills like word recognition, visual memory, eye movements and control all serve to assist a child when they read. Children with learning disabilities invariably have stunted or lowered visual skills development, often because they have not concentrated long enough to develop these skills, and that is where the behavioural optometrist can supply something very unique.

Using special exercises, therapies and games we have now the opportunity to supercharge the development of those skills because we will focus on them specifically.

As a child reads, will the skills develop normally? Yes they need to, but in the case of learning disabilities they are either slow at developing or fail to develop correctly.

Using vision therapy we will develop these skills much more rapidly than if they're left to develop by themselves. While the lenses we prescribe help children to pay attention better with out stress, vision therapy permits us to coach the skills they need to learn, write and spell rapidly and effectively.

Combining the two allows us to have the maximum impact on a child's learning expertise, and to do so in the shortest amount of time. I see the fruits of both of these therapies almost daily in my practice, and I love hearing children excitedly tell me that they've gone up a stage in reading, or listening to their parents describe the improvement.

I really believe that behavioural optometry can and very often does hold the solutions for children stuggling at school.

That's why I love being a behavioural optometrist!

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