The 20/20 Myth

Many have been led to believe that 20/20 sight means  that one's vision is excellent. Unfortunately, all 20/20 tells you is  that you can read a certain sized letter at a certain distance. Most  frequently the 20/20 testing is done monocularly (i.e. with one eye at a  time only).  Also, depending on the eye care practitioner, you may have  anywhere from ten seconds to a couple minutes to try to determine the  letters on the 20/20 line.

20/20 does NOT tell you things such as:

    - how long you can read that letter for clearly

    - how comfortably you can read that letter

    - how well you can transfer from working on a near task to a distance task and back

    - whether your two eyes are tracking a target efficiently

    - how your brain interprets the information

    - how your visual perceptual skills are

    - how efficient your binocular coordination is

    - that you will be able to perform well in sports

    - whether your eyes can track together properly when reading

An individual can have 20/20 sight and still have a visual perceptual problem or a learning difficulty that has a major visual roadblock contributing (if not creating) the problem.

An individual can have 20/20 sight and have poor  eye hand coordination. They even can have achieved moderate to high  levels of success in their athletic endeavors but still have visual  difficulties which are hindering them from achieving their potential.

An individual can have 20/20 sight and see words move on the page when reading... or have troubles learning to read... or continue reversing  letters/numbers... or have troubles with attention (sometimes labelled  ADD/ADHD).