Math is a critical component of our children’s educational experience.  Yet time and time again, United States students tend to underperform in these areas.  Do you believe that vision therapy could help reverse this trend? 

I do.  According to the American Optometric Association,  one in four children has an undetected vision problem.  These vision problems are issues such as convergence insufficiency, amblyopia, eye teaming, poor depth perception – all of which are undetected by typical vision screenings.

How Vision Problems Affect Math

Considering vision problems double among lower income students, it seems logical that eliminating a vision problem could improve those math scores.  Consider the impact of vision problems on math:

If a student has difficulty seeing things as clear and single, they may have trouble seeing decimals and/or symbols.

An important skill in math is to organize what is being written, and a student may have trouble lining things up and keeping place if their visual skills are poor.

Laterality and directionality are also important concepts in math. If a student sees the orientation of numbers incorrectly, he or she will have difficulty completing the problem.

Students who lack visualization skills can often be found counting on their fingers or verbalizing sequences. Given enough time, they can generally compute an answer, but they tend to do poorly on timed tests.

Awareness of numbers and math concepts are spatial. Children with visual problems may have difficulty understanding what numbers mean, as well as being able to visualize numbers and quantities.

It should be noted that a child with vision problems may do well in math, but may be a poor reader primarily because math doesn’t require as many sustained precise eye movements as reading.  However, this could impact their ability to perform story problems.

Vision therapy can help reduce these struggles.  We need to come to grips with how vision problems can be diagnosed and vision therapy delivered to many of these lower income students, and all students in general.

The first step begins with awareness.  Making people aware of vision problems is critical.  If your child is struggling in math, download the Vision and Learning Guide, and pass it on to your teacher.  Let’s get those math scores headed in the right direction.

 

Learn how undetected vision problems can impact a child's ability to learn.  Download your free Vision and Learning Guide.