One in four youngsters is affected by visual perception problems severe enough to sentence the child to years of playing academic catchup with peers, according to the American Optometric Association.
James Vikidel, 8, got the help he needed because his mother, Pat, refused to stand by and watch him be an underachiever.
“Jim was in 2nd grade and having trouble reading,” she recalled. “For him, reading a book was next to impossible. The words just seemed to pull together with no spaces between them.
“I knew he was bright, but I also knew something was wrong. If I read a math word problem to him, he could do it correctly in his head, but if he had to read it himself, he couldn’t do it at all.”
Vikidel had her son’s eyesight checked. And rechecked. “I took Jim to three doctors–two ophthalmologists and an optometrist,” she said. “They said he had an eye-muscle imbalance problem, and he would grow out of it. Well, I didn’t want to wait until he grew out of it. He was falling farther and farther behind in school every day.”
Rosemary Layton, school nurse at El Sierra Elementary School in Downers Grove, where Jim is a student, suggested he be examined by behavioral optometrist Sharon Luckhardt of Westmont, to whom she had referred other children.
Behavioral optometrists, sometimes called developmental optometrists, offer services beyond prescribing eyeglasses and contact lenses to improve visual acuity. They provide vision therapy, which uses game-like activities to teach the eyes to work together as a team and to stimulate development of the vision centers of the brain. No drugs or surgery are involved.
Having 20/20 eyesight doesn’t mean you have an accurate picture of the real world, caution behavioral optometrists. Light passes through the camera-like lens of the eye, focuses on the retina and travels in the form of electrical impulses via the optic nerve to the brain. The brain then analyzes and interprets the input. If the nerve pathways are not developed properly, errors in visual perception can result. For example, a straight line may appear to bend, walls may seem to curve inward or outward, upright objects may look tilted, and words on a page may appear to jump from one line to another.
After Luckhardt examined Jim last April, she prescribed weekly 50-minute sessions of vision therapy, which he continued through October. “Vision therapy is not a quick fix, it’s a learning process,” Luckhardt explained. “We’re teaching the brain how to react to visual stimuli correctly.”
For Jim, vision therapy paid rich dividends, Vikidel said.
“He’s come a long way in his reading (skills),” she said. But the most important change is a boost in his self-confidence. “He actually wants to go to school now.”
Some health professionals predict vision therapy is the next megatrend in the quest for the answer to why Johnny can’t read.
In the last several years, Layton has referred 12 to 15 youngsters for vision therapy, mostly 2nd and 3rd graders: “Typically, they’re not in severe trouble in all subjects, but they are not achievers in reading.”
“When I do a psychological evaluation for learning disabilities in children, I find (learning disabled) kids invariably have a problem with visual perception,” said psychologist Richard Malter of Schaumburg.
Even though Russell Rybaski of Carol Stream wore glasses in grade school that corrected his eyesight to 20/20, he read sentences in choppy fragments. He also had problems with coordination. “The poor kid couldn’t catch a ball,” said his mother, Kathy. “He didn’t play sports because no one wanted him on their team.”
Malter referred Russell, then 12, to behavioral optometrist Jeffrey Getzell, who has offices in Algonquin and Evanston. Russell’s examination proved to be an eye-opener for his mother.
Getzell asked Russell to put on a pair of glasses that made objects appear longer and straighter. He then tossed a tennis ball to the boy, “and he caught the ball in front of him. I almost fell off the chair,” his mother related. “Russell had never, ever caught a ball without clutching it to his chest. All I could think of was why didn’t somebody tell me about this doctor five years ago?”
Two years of vision therapy rewrote the script of her son’s life, Rybaski said. Today Russell, 16, is a voracious reader. He also competes on basketball, softball, baseball and swim teams.
It’s no coincidence that vision therapy games bear close resemblance to child’s play. Incorporating body movement into training exercises “teaches people to see in 3-D, to know where their body is in relation to their surroundings,” Getzell said.
Luckhardt’s and Getzell’s offices are loaded with recreational paraphernalia: balls, beanbags, wands, lenses, prisms, glasses with colored lenses, a trampoline, a 4-inch-high balance beam, a blackboard, long rods and other whatnots that wouldn’t look out of place in a toy chest. Luckhardt also uses computer-based therapy complete with headset and joystick.
Red-flag signs of possible visual perception problems are squinting, eye rubbing or excessive blinking; headaches or dizziness associated with reading or other close work; holding a hand over one eye when reading; difficulty copying off a blackboard; confusing similar words in print; poor reading comprehension; frequent daydreaming; and clumsiness.
Vision therapy is the body-building equivalent of weight training. According to the Optometric Extension Program in Santa Ana, Calif., which promotes vision research and education, vision therapy can boost performance in the skills that make up the anatomy of visual perception, including tracking (following a moving object smoothly), fixation (focusing on stationary objects), depth perception (judging the relative distance of objects), peripheral vision (seeing the outer edges of a central task or object), binocularity (using both eyes together as a team) and visualization (accurately picturing images in memory).
The College of Optometrists in Vision Development of Chula Vista, Calif., which certifies behavioral optometrists, reports that only 1,200 out of 29,500 currently licensed optometrists have taken post-graduate courses and passed the group’s oral and written exams. Of those, only 42 practice in Illinois. Vision therapy fees range from $60 to $95 per session, which may be covered by major medical health insurance.
Behavioral optometrists face considerable opposition to their vision-therapy mission from the American Academy of Ophthalmology in San Francisco. In a written statement, the academy said, “self-proclaimed vision trainers are not medical doctors and have no formal training in treating medical problems or teaching children.”
But Parents Active for Vision Education, a non-profit group formed in 1988 and based in San Diego, advocates testing preschoolers for developmental vision problems.
“At that age, it’s preventive care,” Luckhardt said. “Preschoolers haven’t had a chance to associate reading with frustration.”
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For more information about vision therapy, call Parents Active for Vision Education at 800-728-3988; College of Optometrists in Vision Development, 619-425-6191; and Optometric Extension Program, 714-250-8070.
