Optometrists label themselves as behavioural because vision issues can affect behaviour, causing avoidance of tasks like reading due to fatigue and headaches. They’re called developmental optometrists because they assess and treat the progression of visual skills like focusing and comprehension through vision therapy.

Functional vision problems can significantly affect a child’s performance in reading, writing, and arithmetic. These issues are often not detected by standard school vision screenings but can greatly impact a child’s academic and social life. Vision problems can hinder a student’s ability to recognize and remember numbers and letters, affecting comprehension. It may also lead to difficulties in deciphering decimals and signs in math, and challenges in writing in a straight line or distinguishing similar-shaped letters. To identify these issues, it is recommended to seek advice from a developmental optometrist for a comprehensive functional vision assessment.

Functional vision issues, which involve the brain, eyes and visual pathways working together, can cause difficulties in reading and writing for children. These problems may not be detected by conventional eye examinations and can include poor convergence, laterality, form discrimination, span of recognition, visualization, tracking, orientation, and focusing. Vision therapy, involving exercises and various tools, is an effective treatment for improving these underperforming visual skills.