Anyone use "Eyes on Track" -eye tracking & vis

There is no scientific research to support vision therapy. Two opthalmology associations and the American Academy fo Pediatrics have a joint position statement to that effect as well.

Laura,
CF is right, however my opthamologist did concur with the vision therapist that my son had no binocular vision. So we paid out of pocket, because insurance doesn’t recognize this either, for vision therapy. My son can now track the baseball as it comes in. He no longer complains of double vision and he hardly ever has a headache. Vision therapy was three years ago and he hasn’t had any trouble since. I see vision therapy as the “chiropractor of the vision world”. Not too long ago, no one acknowledge that chiropractics had any value. I think someday vision therapy will be seen as a “real” part of medicine too. I figured……..what could it hurt to try it………and it helped so………
Good Luck— Patty

Personally, I have zero depth perception and zero binocular vision — amblyopia that was ignored and deliberately written off by poor practitioners in the 1950’s. When I went to the optometrist as an adult and instead of checking depth perception with the old actual objects at a distance test (where I have a fighting chance of getting 10% correct) he used the new plastic card with the special lens, I couldn’t even get the first control picture, the one used to see if you understand the instructions. He was a little shocked.

Two points: (a) walking into walls and furniture, being totally unable to play softball or basketball or tennis or volleyball, headaches and fatigue etcetera, is no fun. It’s also socially isolating. If your child has this kind of problem, do try to get something done (first get an optomentrist who actually tests more than an eye chart and get good glasses that pull the eyes into teamwork). I am not a proponent of unscientific snake oil cures, but vision therapy is *not* snake oil — merely new and as yet untested and in the experimental stage. If my daughter and I were younger we’d be in there getting retrained.

(b) On the other hand, I ski downhill on the expert trails, drive with a near-perfect record and teach driver’s education, and read and write at a very high level.
Poor binocular vision has very little to do with reading *if* you teach reading — this is an excuse used by the guess-and-hope practitioners as one of the two hundred reasons they don’t succeed in teaching reading. You need to teach the child the habit of tracking along a line. As with all skills, some people learn it more easily than others. But being myself a person with zero binocular vision and very weak tracking of moving objects and having a daughter who was visually handicapped due to retinal damage and also tracks poorly, I can say that something *else* is going on as well as binocular vision and moving-object tracking if you can’t move along a line of print. One poster here, Rod, has posted a lot about vision therapy and other eye difficulties that can successfully be retrained; look in the archives for old posts.
And look at sports such as soccer, skiing, swimming, etc., that don’t require catching balls against a blank sky. nThey can be a real help for exercise and self-esteem.

and other studies that support vision therapy.

http://www.childrensvision.com/studies_and_research.htm

Mary

My 39 year old sister benefited immensely from vision therapy as a child, as did my 43 year old brother. THe optometrist in question did figure out that I didn’t need it (though I have some significant depth perception & visual-spatial issues… but not to the point of headaches). Even then the ophthalmologists trashed it.

in support of vision therapy.

http://www.vision-therapy.com/vt_research_studies.htm

Mary

I haven’t used that book but would love to know where I might be able to find it.

http://www.jfspublishing.com/index.html

I’m sure you can find others by entering the name at http://www.google.com or http://www.metacrawler.com. You might also want to do a search for it at http://www.bestwebbuys.com or http://www.half.com, in case you can find a better price.

Mary

most book stores can order it for you, although you can probably find it online at a discounted price.