Is Your Child Struggling in School? Know What to Ask Your Eye Doctor

Physicians are busy people. With a long list of patients to see, they have to work quickly and efficiently and, unfortunately, may not get to spend a lot of time with the patient. The same goes for eye doctors. While in some cases, a quick 15-minute exam is all that’s needed to evaluate a patient and diagnose a condition, when it comes to a child who’s been having issues at school and struggling with learning and reading, a comprehensive examination that includes a binocular vision evaluation is necessary.

The Importance of a Comprehensive Visual Exam

In order for teachers, parents and other concerned family members to be able to help a child they care about, they must first understand exactly what they’re up against. It’s especially important for kids who are having reading and learning problems, have an IEP or have been diagnosed with ADHD to receive a comprehensive visual exam, as many of these problems can be vision-related. Problems with focusing, tracking, eye teaming and visual processing can often be resolved with the right treatment, leading to a vast improvement in the learning and reading performance of the child.

Knowing What to Ask Your Doctor

The best way to be an involved parent when it comes to your child’s vision is by understanding the cause of problems and knowing the right questions to ask your eye doctor. You’ll first need to find out if the practice is able to perform the comprehensive testing necessary to identify and diagnose visual problems such as Binocular Vision Dysfunction (BVD) and Vertical Heterophoria (VH). Ask if they can evaluate the following:

• Binocular vision
• Visual processing
• Eye teaming
• Eye focusing
• Eye tracking

Finding the Right Treatment

Many primary care optometrists have neither the training, the specialized equipment necessary or the time for such exams, at which point you’ll need to get in touch with a NeuroVisual Specialist like those here at Vision Specialists of Michigan. Our detailed, thorough examinations enable us to identify even the smallest eye misalignments, which are what lead to binocular vision problems. Once identified, alignment issues can be treated with our innovative micro-prism lenses.   To find out more about how we treat and diagnose binocular vision disorders and whether we can help your struggling child, give us a call at (248) 258-9000 or fill out our BVD questionnaire.