Visual difficulties explained Part 2 Visual efficiency

If your child is reluctant to read or tires easily when doing school work or complains of headaches. There could be a genuine reason for their difficulties.

Visual efficiency is an area of vision which many people overlook or do not realise the impact that it could make on a child (or an adult) who is trying to read or do close work. 

There three main areas tracking, teaming and focus. If there are difficulties in any of these areas, then the experience of trying to read will be both difficult and exhausting. These difficulties are not readily visible to an adult observing the child and equally it is very hard for a child to be able to explain that something is wrong. They often go undetected as very often the child assumes that all people see the way they do.

1. Tracking

Many people are unaware that reading is not a natural process for us. Although many children do learn to read rapidly and with little effort, many do not. The pathways in the brain are not naturally there to decipher the written code and develop over time through practise. It also only convention that leads us to read from left to right rather than right to left or top to bottom. We have to train our brain to track from left to right and because we have to read the beginning and end of the word to make sense of it our eyes develop a jumping movement. If this movement does not develop effectively then our eyes may skip over small words or miss suffixes like -ed, - ing, -es. We may also lose our place in a text or skip lines.

      2. Teaming

Our eyes are meant to move and work together and focus on the same spot. Each eye sees a slightly different perspective which the brain then combines to make a single image. This helps to create a 3-D image and gives depth perception. If these images are not combined correctly then the person may see double. It can also lead to blurred vision, eye strain and headaches. This makes it very difficult to accurately decode and read comfortably. Common eye teaming problems are insufficient convergence, where the eyes have a tendency to turn out or convergence excess is where the eyes turn in.

3. Focus

Our eyes have to switch focus constantly to take in the world around us and perform every day tasks. Some children have difficulty switching focus from near to far which can make functioning in a typical classroom difficult.  Very often important information is displayed on the board and children are expected to refer to this as they work closely through their classwork at their desks. Copying from the board will also be laborious. This can lead the images to be blurry and cause eye strain and fatigue.

 What are the signs should we look out for?

- holding a book or paper too close

- frequent eye rubbing or blinking during reading or homework

- avoids reading

- slow reading speed

- tilts or turns head

- slow to complete homework

- closes or covers one eye

If you are concerned about these visual difficulties you should consult a Behavioural optometrist

www.eyecanlearn.com is a useful website which shows how these visual difficulties might appear to someone trying to read.