Vision Therapy has been something the Learning Services Team has been exploring more this year, along with Irlen Syndrome, and I wanted to share with you the following link to a Ted Talk about how vision therapy could help someone with double vision see in 3-D. I've had a number of students this year that discovered that they had significant tracking and vision challenges, including double vision, and just want to encourage everyone to consider that the learning challenges your child might be facing are the result of visual input and how the brain is interacting with that information. As Susan points out, it is not even always about the physical eye, but about the brain, and the brain can be changed. Which is amazing!
The following is taken from the Ted Talk web site:
"For most of my life, the last place I wanted to be was an eye doctor's office. I had been cross-eyed since infancy, and despite three surgeries, remained cross-eyed and stereoblind. Scientific dogma indicated that my visual deficits resulted from changes in brain circuitry that occurred in infancy and could not be reversed in adulthood. So, when I finally consulted a developmental optometrist and began optometric vision therapy at age 48, I took a significant risk. I had to think beyond the conventional wisdom, abandon old visual habits, and master skills that most children acquire within the first six months of life. As I began to straighten my eyes and see in 3D, I learned that the adult brain is indeed capable of significant plasticity. Rewiring in the adult brain requires the presence of novel and behaviorally relevant stimuli, the conscious abandonment of entrenched habits, and the establishment, through intense practice, of new ones.
link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCCtphdXhq8
