The following scenario may sound familiar. It’s a school night and your child has a reading assignment which he or she refuses to complete. You plead with your child, offering to read it together or incentivizing with a reward. No matter what you do, your child just wants to watch TV or play yet another video game.

Perhaps you’ve already consulted with your child’s teacher, school counselor, and pediatrician about the reading difficulties, just to be told that all seems normal — yet you remain concerned. At Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry, we understand the challenges for parents and children that accompany reading difficulties, and we’re here to help.

A functional visual evaluation with our team of eye doctors will determine whether the child’s visual system may actually be at the root of your child’s reading and learning struggles. If a visual problem is hindering your child from reaching their potential, the vision therapy program offered at Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry can help turn your child into a proficient reader.

Visual Skills Necessary For Reading

There are many visual skills that contribute to academic success. One of the least important skills is termed visual acuity (clarity, sharpness), also known as 20/20 vision, this only assesses how well a child sees at twenty feet away and is part of basic vision screenings in schools and most regular eye exams. However, how well a child sees at a distance of twenty feet has little to do with how well their visual system performs at the reading and learning distance — approximately 11 to 16 inches from the face.

More relevant visual skills required for reading include eye-tracking, eye-teaming, convergence, accommodation, and visual fixation. These skills are assessed during a functional visual evaluation. In simpler terms — both eyes need to work together, move at the same pace, and provide a single and clear image for the brain to interpret. Imagine trying to read when the words are blurry or even doubled? Vision therapy is a customized program to improve these visual skills by training the brain to improve these visual skills —thereby significantly improving the child’s reading, learning, and performance at school.

Early Signs of a Struggling Reader

Although detecting a child’s visual problem can be difficult — either because he or she may not complain about their vision or simply lack the communication skills needed to describe their struggles — several signs may indicate an underlying vision problem. If your child exhibits any of the following behaviors, it may be time to get a functional vision evaluation with our team of eye doctors.

• Reading below grade level
• Low attention span or excessive fidgeting
• Behavioral issues caused by frustration
• Resistance to attend school or do homework
• Shying away from reading out loud or avoiding reading altogether
• Struggling to summarize or remember what was just read
• Teachers may notice the child takes frequent bathroom breaks during activities involving reading
• Covering one eye, head-tilting, or frequently blinking when looking at far-away objects, such as a blackboard
• Headaches after reading

How Does Vision Therapy Work?

Vision therapy focuses on improving the child’s visual skills. These visual skills, just like walking and talking, are learned skills that can be trained and improved. The brain’s neuroplasticity allows for new learning pathways to be created, making it possible for a child to gain visual skills that weren’t present beforehand. Because around 75% to 90% of a child’s learning occurs through the visual system, any issues with the various visual skills could hinder a child from achieving their potential. On the flipside, enhancing visual abilities can make learning and reading easier and more accessible.

If a vision-related reading issue is the underlying cause of your child’s reading and learning struggles, the vision therapy program at Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry will target and treat your child’s particular issues in a customized program.

Each vision therapy session takes place in-office on a weekly basis under the supervision of our team of eye doctors. In between sessions, your child will also be expected to perform at-home visual exercises. The length of treatment will depend on the type and degree of the vision-related reading issues. The vision therapist will use various aids and tools, such as prisms, filters, eye patches, balance beams, and digital simulations in the therapeutic process.

Give your child the tools for proficient reading and academic success with vision therapy. If you suspect that a vision problem may be preventing your child from succeeding, contact Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry today to schedule a functional vision evaluation.

our team of eye doctors provides vision therapy and other services to patients from Burlington, Oakville, Hamilton, Dundas, and throughout Ontario .

We all know that success tends to be accompanied by confidence. However, because children with visual dysfunctions struggle to perform daily tasks, whether academic or otherwise, their confidence is adversely affected. For example, a 7-year-old child struggling to read will likely refuse to read aloud in the classroom in order to hide his or her challenge. This problem may result in poor grades and the inability to keep up with the class. Over time, this could cause the child to become frustrated and have a negative self-image, leading the child to see him or herself as a “failure”.

It’s quite common for reading struggles and other school-related endeavors to be attributed to a learning disability, when in fact, the child may have undetected poor visual skills. Basic vision screenings do not assess visual skills and won’t catch functional vision problems, such as poor eye teaming, poor focus, or how the eyes move while reading. Only a functional eye exam can determine whether a child is struggling with visual difficulties and assess whether vision therapy can help develop and improve these skills. It’s important to note that even a child with 20/20 vision can have a visual dysfunction that interferes with learning.

Vision therapy helps thousands of children a year. The vision therapy program offered at Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry can help your child by retraining the brain and eyes to work in unison — offering them their best chance at success.

What Is Vision Therapy?

Vision therapy (VT) is a progressive treatment program made up of a variety of eye exercises, personalized to fit the needs of each child. The goal of vision therapy is to develop or enhance fundamental visual skills and abilities while increasing visual comfort and processing. Each treatment session takes place at the office once or twice a week under the supervision of our team of eye doctors.

To further support in-office treatment and accelerate progress, certain visual exercises are expected to be performed at home on a regular basis.

VT has been proven to improve the following eye conditions:

• Ambylopia (lazy eye)
• Strabismus (eye turn)
• Binocular vision problems
• Focusing/accommodative disorders
• Visual-Perceptual difficulties
• Eye movement problems
• Visual disorders resulting from brain injury

As part of the therapeutic process, vision therapists turn to various tools, such as specialized lenses, prisms, patches, filters, balance boards, and digital simulations.

Building confidence through vision therapy from EyeCarePro on Vimeo.

Improved Vision Can Impact Confidence Levels

At the risk of sounding cliche, vision therapy can change lives — especially in children whose vision problems are at the root of academic or other vision-related struggles. Children who once experienced difficulty reading or playing certain sports due to vision problems will now have the skills needed to excel in those areas, leading to improved self-confidence and a feeling of competence.

When simple tasks become obstacles, children may become frustrated, or even angry. For this reason, VT also assists with behavioral issues. Once these daily tasks become easier to perform, episodes of frustration diminish in frequency.

Improving a child’s visual skills with VT allows them to become better learners, and helps them achieve their academic goals. In fact, VT can be a key component in preparing a child for higher education, as increased success can develop a greater belief in one’s abilities. This newfound confidence will inevitably trickle into other areas positively impacting the quality of life and achievements.

With vision therapy, schoolwork, sports, and other daily activities that were once challenging become easier.

The trained visual skills developed through vision therapy empowers the child and shows them that they, too, can succeed. Don’t let poor visual skills hinder your child or yourself from accomplishing goals. Speak with our team of eye doctors to discover how vision therapy can unlock your or your child’s hidden potential. Call Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry today.

Dr. Patricia Fink Optometryprovides vision therapy and other services to patients from Burlington, Oakville, Hamilton, Dundas, and throughout Ontario .

You’ve probably heard about vision therapy – perhaps from another medical professional or others who’ve experienced the benefits firsthand. But questions remain.

That’s where we come in.

Below, we’ll shed light on what vision therapy is, what it isn’t, and how it came to be.

What Is Vision Therapy?

Vision therapy (VT) is a subspecialty of optometry consisting of a series of individualized visual exercises to treat the patient’s specific visual needs. Sessions take place regularly, in-office, while under the supervision of an optometrist, and are combined with daily vision at-home exercises performed by the patient.

Vision therapy has been proven to successfully treat or improve the following eye conditions:

• Strabismus (eye turn)
• Amblyopia (lazy eye)
• Convergence insufficiency
• Eye-tracking or focusing problems
• Post-concussion vision problems

We use a host of tools and techniques to strengthen the eye-brain connection, including:

• Prisms
• Therapeutic lenses
• Eye patches
• Balance boards
• Electronic visual stimulants
• Auditory aids
• Many other specialized tools developed for vision therapy

The goal of vision therapy is to help patients improve or develop visual skills or abilities in order to increase visual comfort and effectively process visual information.

What Vision Therapy Isn’t

VT isn’t meant to rid the patient of glasses or contacts, as it doesn’t correct refractive errors –such as myopia or hyperopia.

You can think of VT as a program that uses various therapies and exercises to retrain the neural processes of the brain thus improving the eye-brain connection. Ultimately, the goal of vision therapy is to teach the patient new visual skills in an engaging and motivating way until the learned skill becomes automatic. So while glasses or contacts are often used in addition to vision therapy, the goal isn’t for the patient to see 20/20 without them.

Who Can Benefit From Vision Therapy?

Adults and children with a vision disorder can benefit from VT.

Someone with a visual disorder may experience any of the following:

• Dizziness
• Sleepiness while reading
• Poor depth perception
• Floaters
• Poor memory
• Head tilt
• Blindspot
• Blurred vision
• Covering or closing one eye

Note that people with poor visual skills may act out, avoid reading, and consequently have low self-esteem. Improving their visual function will do more than just help with academic or work performance — it can change how they view themselves and improve their self-confidence and self-esteem.

How Did Vision Therapy Come About?

Vision therapy has been used by practitioners for over 150 years! It was originally developed by ophthalmologists searching for a non-surgical alternative to treat strabismus (eye turn). These ophthalmologists created a series of visual exercises called “orthoptics”, meaning “straightening of eye”.

While orthoptics was effective in straightening the patients’ eyes, it didn’t improve other symptoms of visual dysfunction, such as tracking problems, poor depth-perception, focusing, and processing issues.

In the mid-twentieth century, an innovative group of optometrists realized that for vision therapy to be effective, vision must be viewed as much more than a simple mechanical neuro-muscular system. They then went on to develop and expand vision therapy into the successful method of visual improvement it is today. This new form of vision therapy has been giving patients a whole new way of interacting with the world.

History of Vision Therapy from EyeCarePro on Vimeo.

Call Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry to schedule a functional eye exam and determine whether vision therapy can help you or your children improve vision skills for increased success and a higher quality of life.

our team of eye doctors provides vision therapy and other services to patients in Burlington, , Oakville, Hamilton, Dundas, and throughout Ontario .

It’s that time of year again when we sit down with a pumpkin spice latte in hand and think of a resolution we can take upon ourselves for the new year. Here at Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry, we believe that the best resolutions are the ones that positively impact other areas of our lives and enhance our overall quality of life. Vision therapy offers just that! This therapy is made up of a series of customized visual exercises designed to develop or regain visual processing skills.

Vision Therapy is highly effective in treating:

• Amblyopia, (or “lazy eye”)
• Strabismus, (or “eye-turn”)
• Eye movement disorders
• Focusing disorders
• Binocular vision problems
• Vision, balance, and memory problems associated with brain injury

Even those with 20/20 eyesight can benefit from vision therapy because perfect eyesight doesn’t mean perfect vision. Below are the ways in which vision therapy will help you kick-off the new year.

Improve Existing Vision Skills

You’re good at what you do, be it at work, school or sports. But can you do better? By training the eyes and brain to work in unison, you increase your potential for greater performance. Not only will you be more efficient, but performing tasks will become more enjoyable. This especially applies to school-aged children, as their brains are still in rapid development. Vision therapy effectively enables the brain to correctly process information for optimal academic success.

Learn New Skills With Ease

Many people make it their resolution to learn a new skill in the upcoming year but an underlying vision problem can interfere with that. Since learning is 80% visual, vision therapy offers an excellent opportunity to gear up for success! Undiagnosed or untreated vision problems related to convergence and focus can cause memory and reading problems and hinder learning. our team of eye doctors will use an array of tools, such as prisms, specialized lenses, filters, balance beams, and computerized visual activities to train the eye-brain connection and help you learn more efficiently in almost any area that requires vision.

Gain The Confidence You Crave

Whether you’re a pro-athlete or a 4th grader struggling to read, improved vision skills will boost your confidence. This confidence will surely trickle into other areas of your life leading to increased self-esteem.

Start 2020 by empowering yourself or your child with vision therapy. Call Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry to book your appointment today.

Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry serves patients in Burlington, Oakville, Hamilton, and Dundas, and throughout Ontario .

The first years of a child’s life are crucial in ensuring the healthy and normal development of various body parts, especially the visual system. As a child’s body grows, so do the eyes. This can cause changes in vision. Keeping a close eye on, well, your child’s eyes, can help ensure that they are developing in a healthy way.

It’s important for parents and teachers to be on the lookout for problems with visual processing, as they can interfere with a child’s academics, social life, and extracurricular endeavors. This is especially evident during the school years when reading, writing, homework, and after-school activities become a part of their normal daily routine.

Even if a child has no refractive errors (such as nearsightedness or farsightedness) and has 20/20 vision, he or she may still have difficulties with visual processing or focus. These types of visual complications are often more difficult to detect, but may still impact various aspects of a child’s development.

When a child’s visual difficulties hinder their learning or social interactions, it may be time to try vision therapy.

What is Vision Therapy?

Vision therapy is a personalized regimen of exercises that can improve and strengthen visual functions. Each patient has unique needs and different degrees of visual health, which is why our team of eye doctors and the team at Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry create a customized vision therapy program to get the best results for your child.

Vision therapy is compared to physical therapy, only for the eyes instead of the entire body. The techniques and exercises can teach the eyes to improve specific areas of vision, such as focus, eye teaming, hand-eye coordination, and visual tracking, among other skills. The doctor may include prisms or special eyeglasses to boost the therapy program.

Most children’s vision therapy takes place in our office and usually once a week. You’ll be instructed to continue some of the exercises at home for 15-20 minutes daily, which will support the in-office treatment.

At What Age Can Children Begin Vision Therapy?

Vision therapy is offered to children as young as 6 years of age. Kids can develop problems with visual perception and clarity that aren’t always detected with a standard vision exam or school screening. Of course, every child is different, and the best way to know if they’re ready for vision therapy is to schedule a consultation with our team of eye doctors.

Does Vision Therapy Really Work?

Vision therapy has been proven to improve visual skills and functions in both children and adults. It is an approved treatment by recognized organizations in the medical community, such as the American Optometric Association and the Canadian Association of Optometrists.

Keep in mind that it can take several months to notice significant improvement. Consistency is key. Young children, especially in the toddler years, need a steady routine to achieve the best possible results.

It’s important to note that vision therapy does not fix your child’s learning abilities or correct any refractive errors. The goal is to improve their visual function so that their skills in reading, writing, schoolwork, and social activities are strengthened for a better quality of life.

Contact our team of eye doctors and the knowledgeable staff at Dr. Patricia Fink Optometry to schedule a consultation and see whether vision therapy is right for your child.

our team of eye doctors serves patients in Burlington, Oakville, Hamilton, and Dundas, and throughout Ontario .