Raising Smarter Children

Our post today is from invited guest, Dr. Stephen C. Miller of Seeing Smarter. As a developmental optometrist, his information will help your child see smarter and even be smarter!

Did you know that we see with our brains, not just our eyes? As you get better strategies for raising smarter children, eye training can very well be one your child needs for success in school, sports and life.

When we look at something, its image is focused on the back of our eyes, like on the film in a camera. But it’s our brain that “develops” it into the picture we see. Seeing better can mean being smarter.

As children grow, many never develop the vision skills needed to succeed in school. As a result, they have difficulty with reading, learning, and even sports due to problems getting their eyes and brain to work together.

It’s not always easy to pinpoint an exact reason why a child isn’t doing well in school either.

Frequently, learning difficulties are due to a combination of problems. But when a child struggles in school or performs below their potential, a hidden vision problem may actually be the cause.

You don’t want to confuse vision and eyesight though, because they are very different. Eyesight is simply the ability to see clearly, and vision is the ability to make meaning out of what you see. This is why some kids can “see” with 20/20 on a distance eyesight chart, but still be poor readers. Their vision, or ability to make meaning at nearpoint is often not even tested in school.

Good Vision is Fundamental to Learning

A vision problem can make it harder for children to learn. The extra effort they use to compensate for poor vision makes it difficult to remember and understand what they see.

The harder they try, the greater the chance they will develop symptoms of discomfort and fatigue. Behavior problems can also occur because kids are frustrated and want to do well, but don’t understand why they can’t.

Training the Eyes and Brain “To See”

A program of eye exercises called vision therapy can train the eyes and brain to work together more effectively. Vision therapy, also called visual training, is used to change and improve how a child sees.

Eliminating vision problems can make it easier for a child to read and learn. Many athletes take eye training or vision therapy programs and credit it as part of the reason they win gold medals.

Vision therapy, or eye training, helps a child gain vital vision skills. It uses many different visual activities, practiced under controlled learning conditions. The training activities provide feedback, allowing a child to monitor his or her own performance and respond appropriately.

Some activities may seem more like games than therapy. They can involve tasks like following a swinging ball with the eyes while balancing on a walking rail, or tracing pictures while wearing special red-green glasses that allow each eye to see only parts of the total picture.

Other training activities use more complex equipment like electronic display boards with randomly flashing lights, stereoscopic viewers that present different images to each eye, and computer based programs that involve 3-D tasks. These eye exercises helps kids unlearn inefficient or poorly developed vision skills and gain improved ones.

Seeing Smarter – Developing Vision for Learning

Any child who is having difficulty in school needs to be evaluated for vision problems. A comprehensive vision examination can either rule them out as a contributing factor or identify vision problems that may affect the child’s ability to learn.

If a vision problem is diagnosed and treated, the child will be able to perform more effectively in the classroom.

Parents interested in learning how they can help their child “see smarter” should check out the resources available at http://www.seeingsmarter.com

Sections on this site are dedicated to infants, toddlers and school-age kids.

Seeing Smarter provides the tools every parent needs to recognize, understand, and respond to a variety of vision concerns that affect how children see and learn.

Note from Pat Wyman: Thank you for this wealth of information about seeing better and being smarter, Dr. Miller. We hope you’ll send us more articles to put on http://www.raisingsmarterchildren.com  and we know that our readers will definitely seek out proper vision and eyesight screenings through sites like http://www.covd.org and http://www.oepf.org

Warmly,

Pat Wyman and Erin Studer, M.D.

Remember, check out the back to school information on how to get A’s at http://www.howtolearn.com/coachingstudents2.html