Who Can Benefit from Vision Therapy?
Problems with your vision can affect your depth perception, reading skills, and academic and sports performance. Vision therapy improves communication and coordination between the brain and eyes by strengthening the mind/eye connection. Vision therapy could help you become more comfortable and confident, even if you've had a vision issue for years. If you or a family member struggles with any of the following problems, vision therapy may be helpful.
- Blurry or Double Vision. Do you ever experience blurry vision even though you wear glasses or contacts or have 20/20 vision? If your eyes don't move smoothly when you shift your gaze between near and far objects, everything may look blurry or you may see double. Blurry or double vision may also occur if you have convergence insufficiency. The condition happens when your eyes struggle to converge (turn inward) uniformly when reading or looking at close objects. Strabismus (crossed eyes) or amblyopia (lazy) eye may also cause blurry or double vision.
- Reading and Writing Difficulties. A visual problem could be to blame if you tire quickly when reading, need to use your finger to follow along with the words on the page, reverse letters or numbers when writing, or can't remember what you've read. For example, an eye tracking problem may be the reason words seem to move on the page, while a visual processing disorder could be the reason for illegible handwriting, reversed letters, and trouble staying inside the lines when coloring.
- Strabismus and Amblyopia. You may have strabismus even if you've never noticed an alignment problem with your eyes. Misaligned eyes, whether the misalignment is severe or barely noticeable, could affect your visual skills. Double vision and other strabismus symptoms occur when the brain struggles to combine conflicting information from the eyes into one clear image. Amblyopia, a condition that can occur if the brain decides to ignore information from one eye, may happen if strabismus isn't treated. Amblyopia causes many of the same symptoms as strabismus, including double vision and poor depth perception.
- Clumsiness. Your clumsiness could be related to an undetected vision problem if you frequently trip over your own feet or knock things over. Poor eye-hand coordination or depth perception can cause you to misjudge distances, trip over obstacles in your path, or struggle to walk on uneven ground.
- Sports Problems. Trouble catching or throwing a ball or keeping track of other players on the field could be caused by poor eye tracking skills, focusing problems, eye-hand coordination difficulties, or slow visual processing speed.
- Eye Strain. Problems with eye alignment and eye muscle coordination could increase your risk for developing eye strain. Symptoms include headaches, blurry vision, tight shoulder and neck muscles, and sore, red, burning eyes.
- Dyslexia. Children with dyslexia may also have undiagnosed vision problems, such as visual memory or perception issues, eye teaming or tracking difficulties, or strabismus. Improving visual skills may make it easier to learn techniques to manage dyslexia.
How Vision Therapy Improves Visual Skills
Vision therapy is tailored to your specific visual issues. For example, you'll participate in activities that help your eyes work together as a team if you have a focusing problem. If eye tracking issues or poor eye-hand coordination affect your sports performance, you may play video games designed to help your eyes follow moving objects during therapy sessions.
Multiple research studies support the effectiveness of vision therapy. A research study published in BMC Ophthalmology in 2025 explored the benefits of vision therapy for amblyopia in children. Children who participated in vision therapy, optical correction and part-time patching of the weaker eye had better visual acuity (sharpness of vision) than children who only received optical correction and part-time patching.
Female netball players who received sports vision training had lasting significant improvements in motor coordination, eye-hand coordination, reaction speed and visual tracking, according to a research study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health in 2022.
Interested in learning if vision therapy is right for you? Contact our office to schedule your appointment.
Sources:
Research Gate: Role of Sport Vision in Performance: Systematic Review, 5/20/2024
BMC Ophthalmology: Efficacy of Vision Therapy for Unilateral Refractive Amblyopia in Children Aged 7 – 10 Years, 1/31/2022
https://bmcophthalmol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12886-022-02246-9
International Journal of School and Cognitive Psychology: Exploring the Role of Depth Perception in Coordinated Physical Action, 11/29/2024
PubMed: Optometry & Vision Science: Improvement in Academic Behaviors After Successful Treatment of Convergence Insufficiency, 1/2012
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22080400/
PMC: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health: An Explanatory Investigation of the Effect of a Sports Vision Program on Grade 4 & 5 Female Netball Players' Visual Skills, 8/10/2022