Vision-Related Learning Assessments and Training

When humans learn, eyes are responsible to receive 80% of overall information. Then the information is sent to the brain for further interpretation and reasoning through a series of visual perceptual skills. If children have deficiencies in visual perceptual skills, they may make mistakes on understanding what they see and experience difficulties in learning and daily lives. Children with special education needs (SEN) may also have visual perceptual problems at the same time and further increase their burden in learning. Examples of visual perceptual problems include:

• Mix up with the order and orientation of the letters during reading and writing
• Confuse with letter b, d, p, q, and other words that look similar to each other
• Writing in reversed forms
• Difficulty in telling directions
• Difficult to control the size of the letters, difficult to write properly on the given lines and slow writing speed
• Difficult to determine the spacing during writing
• Difficulty in copying shapes and words
• Low efficiency in doing homework and revision  
• Difficult to remember the objects and words just seen
• Difficulty in tidying up things 

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As visual science professionals, optometrists can assess the children’s vision-related learning performance and deliver tailor-made visual perceptual training. By employing interactive games, toys and even special computerized programs, we can further arouse the children’s interests and increase the training efficiency. Together with other healthcare professionals such as speech therapists, occupational therapists and education psychologists, we are able to work with the teachers and parents to take care of the needs of SEN children.