Dyslexia and Vision Therapy

Dyslexia is a word frequently tossed about when children have problems reading or learning. Commons complaints that lead to the use of the word include letter reversals, poor reading comprehension and decreased reading fluency. These symptoms are also recognized as possible vision-related problems cause by poor eye movement accuracy.

Is dyslexia a vision problem or a language problem?

Attempting to define dyslexia can be confusing. The origin of the word is vague: “dys” meaning difficulty with and “lexia”  meaning reading lends itself to broad interpretation.  The best definition for dyslexia, from the International Dyslexia Association, says:

“Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that is neurobiological in origin. It is characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language that is often unexpected in relation to other cognitive abilities and the provision of effective classroom instruction. Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge.”

The research shows that the root cause of dyslexia is phonological processing, or how the brain processes sounds in language. Additionally, the prevalence of dyslexia is estimated to be between 5-20% of the population.

Reading is a complex process involving language, speech, memory, and other processes, but all of these processes assume that the collection of the information to be processed is accurate, ie that the eyes work correctly and more accurately. We do know that poor eye movements lead to poor processing skills because the data to be processed was not collected accurately.

Does vision therapy treat dyslexia?

This is also a very interesting question. In our vision rehab practice, we frequently get children referred to us that have common symptoms of dyslexia and visual processing difficulties like reversals and poor reading skills. Following the interventions, the children have reduced symptoms and most have improved reading fluency.

Some of the patients do continue to have problems in reading although they show improved eye movements. At this point, we may further assess the patient using a dyslexia screening tool that can identify specific errors related to the processing parts of reading such as the decoding and encoding of words. When results indicate, we refer those children to specialists like our friends at Read-Write Learning Center that specialize in the treatment of dyslexia.

Does vision therapy treat dyslexia????

NO. Vision therapy cannot treat dyslexia. But it does improve the accuracy of eye movements eliminating many of the symptoms generally associated with dyslexia. With these eye movement problems gone, an accurate assessment of the visual processing skills and reading fluency is now possible, allowing for an accurate diagnosis of a visual processing or other reading and learning problems.

Here is a video case study describing the process.

*Special thanks to Hunter Oswalt, Director of the Read-Write Learning Center for her input on editing this post.