Fun Home Exercises! Continued....

  

Did anyone try those tracking exercises? If so, which ones did you try? Anything that is new and fun always makes children excited, so I hope you were able to incorporate them into your home exercise regiment. Today we are going to talk about convergence and fun exercises to do at home or on the go.

First, what does convergence mean? It is when the eyes aim inward at the same spot in order to fixate on print. Can you imagine what happens when the eyes do not converge together? It tells us there is a lack of proper eye teaming. This leads to double vision, poor depth perception, exhaustion and headaches when reading, writing, or doing other near tasks for extended periods of time. A lot of children having the above problems have convergence insufficiency (inability to converge eyes together). Through different exercise we can get the eye to work together as a team - our main goal in Vision Therapy!

Fun! Fun! Fun! Convergence Home Exercises:

On the go and want to do Vision Therapy Exercise? Try these:

• Put a small sticker on the window nearest your child, and instruct him/her to look at the sticker for a few seconds, then to look outside at the farthest thing their eyes can find, and then back at the sticker again. Have your child do this at least 10 times every time they get in the car.
• In the morning when your child is brushing their teeth in the bathroom have them doing convergence exercises. First, put a sticker on the mirror, have them stare at the sticker, then have your child look at themselves through the mirror, then back to the sticker again. Brushing your teeth becomes more fun!

More Fun:

• Push Ups: Use a fun toy that lights up or interests your child. Place the toy about 10-12 inches from your child's nose and gradually bring toward the tip of their nose with your child converging to avoid diplopia (double vision). Just before there is a break in fusion, your child holds fixation on the target for 10 seconds. This push-up is repeated 10 times. 
• Brock String: Who loves the Brock String?! I know all of you do. Make it fun by having your child use their imagination and pretend there is a bug at the end of the string. Have them slowly watch the bug come toward their nose. No beads to look at, just a bug! 
• Magic Eye Books: Have your child pick one of their interest.
• Stringing Beads or Shapes at a near point. 
• Eye Can Learn website: Great eye teaming exercises. 
• Use accommodated flippers while reading a story of your child's interest. These flippers help with the motion of convergence and divergence. You flip the lenses with every paragraph. These flippers can be purchased through Nashville Vision Therapy.

Incorporate some of these exercises into your schedule. Next week we will talk about Balance and Coordination.  Happy converging!