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LEARNING DISABILITIES ASSOCIATION JOURNAL SHOWS BENEFITS OF VISION THERAPY

by Dr. Leonard Press

If you try to discuss vision therapy with school personnel, or your pediatrician, are you still encountering people who say “we don’t think that stuff works”? It wouldn’t surprise us if you do, because the research on vision therapy has, until recently, not been published widely in journals outside of Optometry.

Teachers and other professionals don’t read Optometry journals. A “must-read” article for anyone who doesn’t appreciate the application of vision therapy to reading, learning, and attention disorders was recently published in the multidisciplinary journal of the Learning Disabilities Association of America. If anyone tells you that there isn’t research to back up the power of vision therapy as related to learning, there’s no longer any excuse for ignorance on this matter.

The source of this new information is: Solan HA. Learning-related vision problems: How visual processing affects reading efficiency. Learning Disabilities 2004;13(1):25-32.

Put this information into the hands of people who have the best interests of children at heart, but sadly do not mention the option of vision therapy to parents. Dr. Solan’s article emphasizes that there is much more to vision than 20/20 eyesight, and reviews the research that vision therapy improves attention and reading in particular, and learning abilities in general.