Learning and Behavioral Related Problems
It is estimated that 80 percent of what a child learns comes through the visual system, and that behavior is strongly influenced by vision. Dr. Press co-authored the Clinical Practice Guideline of the American Optometric Association on Care of the Patient with Learning Related Vision Problems. Download the Clinical Practice Guideline in its entirety.
A condensed version of this is available as a Quick Reference Guide.
Checklists of signs and symptoms involving visually based learning problems typically address performance problems.
These include a variety of difficulties in reading, writing, spelling, and math that may appear to be seemingly careless errors. The struggles that a child goes through include homework taking hours longer to complete than what the teacher expects when the work is assigned. It is understandable that this results in frustration and behavioral issues.
Behavioral problems can show up as avoidance
Sometimes a child simply gives up trying. That is why we keep the environment in our Vision & Learning Center is much like Liberty Science Center.
Because our therapy is individualized and customized, we set conditions to help your child explore how he is interpreting what he sees. Unlike most educational settings, we focus on trusting what you see rather than worrying about right versus wrong answers.
As a child learns to modify what he sees through a variety of probes including lenses, prisms, filters, and computerized activities, he gains or re-gains confidence in his visual intellect. As an example, recognizing visual patterns and integrating them with corresponding sounds is crucial to word recognition and usage. This enables your child to develop the visual readiness skills necessary to be more fully responsive to educational interventions through school.
Dyslexia
What is Dyslexia?
Literally, dyslexia means difficulty reading words. As most clinical conditions, however, dyslexia exists on a continuum. To learn about the forms of dyslexia and potential treatment options, please view our dyslexia page.
Visual Processing
Visual processing is a key aspect of your child’s readiness for learning in general and reading in particular.
To learn more about visual processing evaluation and treatment, please see our Visual Processing Delays page.