In
today's blog we are going to talk about double vision. The most common cause of
double vision is that the eyes are misaligned, which then causes two different
images to be sent to the brain. Typically, the images are either side by side or
overlapping.
When
I have a student comes into our office for an assessment, one of my first
questions is, "do you ever see two of whatever you are looking at?" And when
they say "yes", it is almost like they are wondering, "How on earth did this
lady know?"
When
I am sitting in the room with just the parents discussing the assessment results
and I tell them “your child has double vision,” often those parents feel
terrible or guilty for not knowing. I have had parents in my office with tears
in their eyes saying, "you must think I am the worst
mother."
Of
course, these parents aren’t awful at all! Let's break it down; a child is not
aware that what they are seeing is abnormal. Therefore, they are unable to
communicate their double vision to their parents--children think everyone sees
the world as they do. It is not uncommon for parents to be unaware of their
child's double vision.
If
you suspect your child may have double vision, here are some signs to look out
for:
- Reading problems
- Skipping or repeating words
- Overlapping letters when writing
- Lots of headaches
- Poor depth perception
The
good news is, we can treat double vision through vision therapy and/or prism
lenses. Since the problem is that the eyes are misaligned we can help alleviate
the issue by getting to work on eye teaming exercises.
While
hearing your child having double vision is alarming, there are
solutions!
