Do you know anybody who has learning difficulties or difficulty paying attention in class?

In some cases, this may be caused by stress on the visual system. To help in understanding some of the visual skills required for school work, think about the classroom environment. The visual skills required in a classroom setting are numerous and include:

Distance vision – being able to see the board

Near vision – being able to see the words in a book

Focussing flexibility – being able to maintain clear vision while shifting focus from a distant object to a near one

Tracking/eye movement skills – being able to aim both eyes accurately and move smoothly across a line of print or from object to object with ease

Eye teaming – being able to coordinate the two eyes together so that they are precisely directed at the same object at the same time

Eye focusing – maintaining, for long periods of time, completely clear vision whilst looking at near or distant objects

All of these things can be assessed by an optometrist during a thorough eye examination.

Help may be provided in the form of prescribed spectacles or exercises. Beyond this, we are also able to offer assessments to determine whether coloured overlays are helpful – these are sometimes found to be beneficial for people with dyslexia.