"Fixing My Gaze"

Has anyone ever heard of Sue Barry? Sue Barry was a women who was born "cross-eyed", and she saw her life in only two dimension. She wrote a book about her experience called Fixing My Gaze. This book describes her astonishing experience of gaining 3D stereovision after a lifetime of seeing in only two dimensions. She did intensive vision therapy which created new neural connections, and with them, a new view of the world.

In this video below she discusses how vision therapy transformed not only her vision, but her beliefs about the neuroplasticity of the adult brain. It is a great story and just shows how beneficial Vision Therapy is at any age.

"For most of my life, the last place I wanted to be was an eye doctor's office. I had been cross-eyed since infancy, and despite three surgeries, remained cross-eyed and stereoblind. Scientific dogma indicated that my visual deficits resulted from changes in brain circuitry that occurred in infancy and could not be reversed in adulthood. So, when I finally consulted a developmental optometrist and began optometric vision therapy at age 48, I took a significant risk. I had to think beyond the conventional wisdom, abandon old visual habits, and master skills that most children acquire within the first six months of life. As I began to straighten my eyes and see in 3D, I learned that the adult brain is indeed capable of significant plasticity. Rewiring in the adult brain requires the presence of novel and behaviorally relevant stimuli, the conscious abandonment of entrenched habits, and the establishment, through intense practice, of new ones."

The Importance of Visualization

Last week, I wrote about Pinterst and how I loved it because it was so visual. I am a very visual person; meaning a person can talk all day long on how to do something, but if they do not perform the task for me to see, I won't be able to comprehend it as well. That leads me to today's blog, "The Importance of Visualization".
  
First, what is visualization? It is the ability to create mental images in your mind. Can you imagine how many things that can affect in your life with the inability to visualize?

The inability to visualize can impact all subjects in school for your child.

• Reading: If your child has vision problems, reading is probably very challenging for them. Your child is spending more time decoding the words individually rather than visualizing and comprehending. You will notice their fluency when reading is very slow, leading to difficulty processing the words. While decoding the words individually, they will not "see" the story when reading. Thus making reading very time consuming which leads to frustration. Reading should be fun!  
• Spelling: With spelling your child has to create a mental image of the words without seeing the word. The visualization skill is crucial in spelling. Creating that mental image will be based on a past visual experience.
• Writing: Visualization is important in handwriting because your child has to create a mental image of each different word while writing it on the page. Multi-tasking at its finest!  
• Math: If your child lacks the visualization skill they usually count on their fingers or silently verbalize the different number sequences. Your child needs to be able to visualize numbers and quantities in able to be successful in math.

Does your child have difficulty in any or all of the above areas? As you can see visualization is crucial in the success of all school subjects. Your child wants to be able to visualize the story when he/she reads, and get As on spelling test. Let Nashville Vision Therapy give them the tools to improve visualization. Your child will see a whole new world when they have the ability to visualize.

Social Networking at its Finest!

Hope everyone has enjoyed making home exercises more fun. In our busy worlds, sometimes it is hard to interrupt a routine and be creative. I hope you got creative this week with home therapy exercises.

During the times without patients, I am constantly looking for new and creative things relating to vision therapy. I think it is safe to say learning new things about what we do, brings more excitement into our lives. Through my search, I have found a lot of great things through social networking sites.

Social networking is a great place to share interests and/or activities. Facebook is the biggest social network (please like us if you haven't). But there is more out there, like Pinterest! Have you heard of Pinterest? "Pinterest is a Virtual Pinboard. Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use pinboards to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.Best of all, you can browse pinboards created by other people. Browsing pinboards is a fun way to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests." I don't know about you, but I love Pinterest! I love that it is so visual!  

It's popularity has grown within the past year. I started searching in their search engine "vision therapy." And what do you know, several therapist or parents have started their own Pinterest. Please check some out:

-VT Possibilities

-Vision Therapy

-Vision Therapy Resources

-Just search "Vision Therapy"

Following these can give us more creative ways to do therapy with our children. Being connected can help all of us grow and expand our knowledge of Vision Therapy. It is a great way to share new, interesting, and creative therapy activities. Start pinning, searching and if you have not started an account, request your invite today!