Children Struggling in School Due to Learning-Related Vision Problems

(Newswire.net — August 25, 2016) Round Rock, Texas — Is your child ready for back-to-school? As summer vacation ends, many students are getting ready to study hard, but their visual skills may not be up to the intense near work that fills most classroom hours.

“Third grade students are particularly susceptible because learning-to-read suddenly switches to reading-to-learn.”   According to optometrist, Dr. Nancy Guenthner, the amount of reading quadruples in third grade. 

Eighty percent of class work requires that students gather and process information visually.  The eyes must stay focused and converged unnaturally close for hours at a time.

Some youngsters will be categorized as having a reading problem, “but for many, the underlying problem will be a visual restriction.” Dr. Guenthner said. 

Signs to look for

One way to distinguish a learning disability is to notice whether a child has trouble learning mainly when close-up vision work is required, such as reading, writing or math.

A common sign is that it takes hours to do 20 minutes of homework,”  said Dr. Guenthner.  “This child often cannot recall what they just read, and they skip or re-read lines.”  Other common signs that visual stress is present include a child who gets headaches in the afternoon, rubs their eyes frequently, falls asleep when reading, overlooks small words or reverses letters or words or avoids reading altogether.

Another signal to look for is a child who substitutes or “makes up” words he or she cannot decipher.  The book says, The cat is brown and white, but the reader says, The cat is down and white. “A child does not outgrow this kind of problem, it remains a problem throughout adulthood and only gets worse.” Dr. Guenthner said.

“If the child is not motivated by some internal drive or external discipline, the child might simply avoid near vision work.  Moodiness, being a class clown, causing disruptions, all are ways to distract attention from academic failure.  Vision is an underlying problem; the misbehavior is an unfortunate way the child tries to get around it.

Dr. Guenthner explained that the typical school screening does not detect the kind of vision problems that restricts reading because these children often have 20/20 distance sight.

The traditional eye chart tests only the ability to use one eye at a time to see far away.  It does not test the ability to make the eyes converge, focus, track a line of type, or the ability to decode and take meaning from letters on a page a foot or so from the eyes. For a complete evaluation of a child’s vision, a pediatric eye exam conducted by an optometrist, should be scheduled.

What can be done about vision-related learning problems?

For some children, subtle prescriptions in glasses help.  Other children have visual restrictions that require programmed therapy to rebuild.  “Neuro-Optometric Therapy is a special area of vision care, only one in 20 eye doctors examines for and treats this kind of problem,” cautions Dr. Guenthner.  A medical eye exam may find healthy eye tissues, but completely miss this problem.

“This is rarely an eye health condition,” Dr. Guenthner said, “but it has severe consequences because a person with learning-related vision problems will have trouble keeping up in any field they choose, throughout life.”

Dr. Guenthner offers free seminars for parents and educators each month.  Her office is at 7700 Cat Hollow Dr., Ste 105, Round Rock, TX 78681.   Call (512) 501-2100 to get dates and times.