who should i be referring to calgary vision therapy?

An abbreviated list of who to refer:

1) Children who are having reading or learning difficulties.

2) Children who have been assessed by an educational psychologist and received a recommendation to have their eyes checked.

3) Any child who is on an IPP (Individual Personalized Program) at school.  The child is receiving accommodations at school that avoid the visual system to allow the teacher to determine how much the child is taking in.  (e.g. is using speech to text; has a scribe; has tests done orally rather than writing, has a reader).

4) A child where the school recommended that they get their eyes checked and glasses didn't seem to help or solve the problem.

5) Individuals with binocular coordination problems that are causing symptoms such as convergence insufficiency, accommodative infacility, convergence excess etc.

6) Individuals with amblyopia (non-pathological) and who want to improve the function of their visual system.   (A reminder that amblyopia can be improved in individuals even in adulthood).

7) Individuals with varying types of strabismus who are motivated to improve the functioning of their eyes without surgery.

8) An individual is doing okay in school but is putting in significant amounts of effort to achieve these results. (ie. this individual may take 2 hours to complete homework that their classmates only take 30 minutes to finish).

9) The individual has suffered a concussion or traumatic brain injury.

It is estimated that 1 in 5 children have a  visually related learning difficulty... so if you see many children in your routine eye care clinic, it is possible that one in 10 children may benefit from optometric vision therapy.