OnTrack Reading

To my knowledge, no school anywhere in the country, or in any English-speaking country for that matter, offers vision therapy under the purview of the school. They offer speech therapy for speech problems and occupational or physical therapy for motor problems, but not vision therapy for vision problems. Yet, if the developmental optometrists are correct, and I believe they are, the vision problems addressed by vision therapy affect learning far more than either speech or motor problems. Still, we have no vision therapy in schools. (Note: If you’re reading this and know of such a school, please email me from the home page.)

Of course, given where we are and where we came from, this is perfectly reasonable. Speech problems are obvious, as are motor problems, and as a society, we refuse to allow these problems to persist in school children if we can fix them. While it might be reasonable to just tell parents to hire the speech therapist on their own, it’s also reasonable to assume that taxpayers don’t feel unduly burdened by seeing that these problems are addressed whenever they surface.

Why School-Based Vision Therapy Might Happen Eventually

Suppose learning problems are mostly caused by undiagnosed vision skills problems, as asserted over and over on this site. Suppose the developmental optometrists are correct. Furthermore, suppose that school personnel gradually become convinced that vision therapy is exactly the intervention that learning disabled children most often respond to. That is, suppose the adoption of the RTI (Response to Intervention) Model results in convincing schools that vision therapy is a much-needed, valuable intervention because the responses are so obvious, and beneficial.

How much of a leap is it from those suppositions to the assertion that schools should employ vision therapists just as they presently employ speech/language therapists for speech issues and physical/occupational therapists for motor issues? By that point not much of a leap at all, it would appear, though presently it’s a chasm facing us.

One Possible Route

Here’s one possible way to proceed. Let parents pay for the medical diagnosis that determines that a child has vision skills problems, just as they now pay for the eye exams that determine the need for eyeglasses. In time, if the schools take on the financial burden of providing vision therapy (under the professional guidance of a developmental optometrist) it would be reasonable to assume that health insurance companies would begin to loosen present restrictions on paying for the initial and follow up eye examinations, (particularly when they see how much it saves them in the reduction of the need for Ritalin and other medications, but that’s a separate story.)

Is this all pie in the sky? Maybe, but under the RTI Model, it does have a chance of happening. Parents are being given a bigger say than ever regarding how their children’s learning issues will be addressed, and in time a large percentage of the parents of dyslexic children are going to come to understand that vision skills deficits are causing learning problems and should require appropriate intervention by the schools.

School-Based Vision Therapy Would be More Efficient

Moreover, it would be much more efficient than the present system where a parent of each child must learn to oversee home-based exercises. It would be far better to have trained vision therapists in the schools who could work with several children each day, and who would almost certainly become more effective as they gained experience. School-based vision therapy would also be a tremendous benefit to those students whose parents lack the time, or the money, or possibly even the inclination, to see that their children get the vision help they so desperately need.

This concludes, for now at least, the policy discussion as it applies to dyslexia. I hope that after reading it you have a better understanding of the present situation you face trying to help your dyslexic child, and of the possible opportunities that might present themselves if your school eventually implements the Response to Intervention Model. Hopefully, this discussion made it clear to you that your child’s future academic success lies primarily in your hands for now. In time, I hope that changes, but for now, it’s primarily up to you.

The next page introduces you to a fantastic book that every parent, and teacher, should read. If you’re the parent of a struggling reader and you are successful in helping him overcome his reading issues, the book offers valuable insights into not only what your goals for your child should be, but also how to help him achieve them. And if you’re a teacher, there’s a chance that it will change both how you view your students and how you teach them.

Next topic: Can Intelligence be Changed?, or return to the OnTrack Reading Home Page.