I’ve noticed that my son will cover one of his eyes (usually the left one) while reading. When I’ve asked him about it before he was never able to verbalize why he was doing it. Today what he said made sense to me but I’m not sure what to do about it. He said that when he uses both eyes it’s hard to follow the words on the page because one eye wants to keep jumping around the page. If he just uses one eye he says he can focus better. He says it’s like looking through a pair of binoculars with both eyes but they aren’t quite in focus so you see two of everything. HELP! I know there is vision therapy but I’ve always been a bit skeptical about that. Any advice? We live overseas and don’t have too much to go on here. Thanks. Mari
Re: Tracking
This could be amblyopia, a condition for which vision therapy is a well-established treatment. Some other vision therapy claims may lack research support, but this is one that does not. Get your son looked at by a pediatric opthamolagist asap. You do not need to see a vision therapy provider to get amblyopia diagnosed. If that is what is going on, your opthamologist will likely refer you to a vision therapy provider.
This definitely sounds like the type of problem vision therapy addresses. Could be a convergence issue — the two eyes not working together at reading distance to form a single image. Take a look at http://www.childrensvision.com for more information.
Maybe you won’t be so skeptical about vision therapy if you do a Google search on orthoptics. This is a specialty created by opthalmologists.
It is usually much easier to find a developmental optometrist than an orthoptician. Try http://www.covd.org to see if there is a board-certified developmental optometrist anywhere near you.
Some developmental vision problems (including convergence) respond well to software. See http://www.homevisiontherapy.com . That might be an option for you. Optometrists who provide this software are listed on the website.
Nancy