Functional Vision Skills
In spite of having good visual acuity and eye health, people can have problems with functional vision skills which interfere with reading, writing and other activities. A person may pass an eye screening test and yet have problems with visual skills such as visual tracking, making quick accurate shifts from one object to another, moving quickly and smoothly from far to near (such as blackboard to desktop), coordinating eyes and hands, or both eyes working together well as a team. Problems with eye movement skills can greatly interfere with the ability to achieve success and competency in academics and other areas. Children with unrecognized or untreated functional vision problems may exert a great deal of energy and experience a high level of frustration when trying to master or complete tasks dependent on visual skills. Disorders in sensorimotor integration, particularly vestibular and proprioceptive sensory processing, often result in problems in visual efficiency and interfere with the development of efficient, automatic visual skills, often compromising performance in academic, athletic, leisure and other skill areas.
Signs of difficulties with vision skills:
- Frequent loss of place while reading
- Tracking line of print with finger when reading
- Jerky eye movements
- Head tilting, closing or blocking one eye when reading
- Red, sore eyes
- Headaches, dizziness after reading
- Letter or word reversals after 1st grade
- Poor handwriting, misalignment of numbers
- Difficulty copying from chalkboard
- Omits, inserts, rereads letters, words
- Has difficulty visually tracking balls or moving objects.
- Turns body or head to follow objects with eyes, rather than following with eyes only
