EXCELerated Vision

Does your child need vision therapy?

Arizona Cardinals' Wide-Receiver and Pro Bowl MVP Larry Fitzgerald Encourages Parents to Take Action TODAY

"The public doesn't realize that you need over 15 visual skills to succeed in reading, learning, sports, and in life. Seeing 20/20 is just one of those visual skills," says Larry Fitzgerald, acclaimed Arizona Cardinals 2008 NFC West Champions' wide-receiver.

During the many pre and post Superbowl press interviews, Fitzgerald, explained that one of the keys to his success was having vision therapy as a child. He had a vision problem that was making it difficult to pay attention in school and his grandfather, Dr. Robert Johnson, a developmental optometrist in Chicago, Illinois, diagnosed the vision problem and the appropriate treatment.

Fitzgerald went through vision therapy under his aunt's guidance, Dr. Stephanie Johnson-Brown, who is currently the executive director of the Plano Child Development Center, a not-for-profit vision care service corporation which was co-founded by her father, Dr. Johnson in 1959, which specializes in vision education and the identification and remediation of vision development problems in children and adults.

According to a report from the New Jersey Commission on Business Efficiency of the Public School, "Undiagnosed and untreated vision related learning problems are significant contributors to early reading difficulties and ultimately to special education classification."

"Vision problems can have a serious impact on a child's education. Don't wait to see if this next school year will be better, take action today!" Fitzgerald encourages parents.

One of the most common vision disorders that interferes with reading was recently the focus of a national study funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Eye Institute, on convergence insufficiency. This is a vision problem where the two eyes don't work together in unison the way they are supposed to when one is reading. The result can make reading very difficult.

While at least one out of every 20 school-age children is impacted by convergence insufficiency, there are other visual abnormalities to be considered. It is estimated that over 60% of problem learners have undiagnosed vision problems contributing to their difficulties.

The good news is the majority of these vision problems can be treated with a program of office-based optometric vision therapy. The study by the NEI found that in-office vision therapy was the best treatment for convergence insufficiency.

The five most common signs that a vision problem may be interfering with your child's ability to read and learn are:

1. Skips lines, rereads lines
2. Poor reading comprehension
3. Takes much longer doing homework than it should take
4. Reverses letters like b's into d's when reading
5. Has a short attention span with reading and schoolwork

Any one of these symptoms is a sign of a possible vision problem. A more in-depth symptom checklist is available on College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD) website.

If your child has symptoms, do not delay. If you are in the region of Southwest Michigan contact Wow Vision Therapy, or to find a doctor in your area who specializes in vision development and optometric vision therapy go the COVD website,www.covd.org, and click on the doctor locator to find a developmental optometrist near you, preferably a Board Certified Fellow. Look for the initials FCOVD after the doctors name.

Dan L. Fortenbacher, O.D.,FCOVD

How Sports Vision Therapy Can Transform You To An Elite Athlete!

With one of the biggest sports events happening today, Superbowl weekend may have you questioning what you can do to bring your sports performance to the next level of competition.  Arizona Cardinal’s wideout, Larry Fitzgerald has been having quite a successful season and defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau says,” I’ve never seen anybody catching the ball any better than Larry Fitzgerald," It has recently been brought to sports fan's attention that some of the credit goes to his optometrist grandfather who had him doing sports vision therapy when he was younger.

You may ask what sports vision therapy is, and who would be a candidate for such a program?  Sports vision therapy can really benefit any athlete looking to improve their visual skills to an above average level, but specifically those players who are inconsistent in their performance, have concentration issues and are affected by fatigue or game stress.  Although vision is only one of the many components of an elite athlete, one needs to ensure that any underlying visual deficits have been addressed, since they may be the reason a player is not performing to their full potential.  In any sport, an athlete is continually taking in visual information.  Whether it be in response to the ball or other players, the athlete must then process the information and move the body to make the appropriate reactions. The more efficient a player is with these skills, the more successful they will be.

Depth perception, or stereopsis, has also been in the news lately in regards to the 3-D commercials set to air during the Superbowl.  If you are unable to view the commercials with a sense of depth, you may have inadequate binocular vision skills and a decrease in your eye's ability to team together efficiently.  Being able to judge distances, how close you are to other players or how fast a ball is approaching is crucial to most sports.  Even a slight reduction in your depth perception could be the difference between being a good athlete and a great athlete.

Although the goal from sports vision therapy is highly individualized for each athlete, one common goal is to ensure that all the visual processes are making a positive contribution to the athlete’s performance and not creating a distraction.

Sports Vision Therapy may be your answer in transforming your sports performance to that of an elite athlete!

Lindsey Stull, OD

Better 3-D Vision and Vision Tracking..."Super Bowl" results for High School Student- U of M Baseball Scholarship

Better eye coordination and 3-D vision helps improve performance in many ways. Simply put, "track it better" hit it better in baseball and read it faster and easier in school and academics.

Read about one of our 17 year old patients and his success from vision therapy. His name is Cameron Luther. Cam's initial diagnosis before treatment was accommodative (eye focusing)and oculomotor (eye tracking) dysfunction . He presented for a vision evaluation because he and his parents were very concerned about his difficulty with reading efficiency. He was very frustrated keeping his place and concentrating on his reading material. Following 25 sessions of office-based vision therapy Cam has improved in many ways. Here is Cameron's story in his own words:

"Since beginning vision therapy, I have noticed improvements in nearly every aspect of my vision, but there are two improvements that have stood out amongst the rest. They are my reading speed and my ability to track a baseball when hitting.

At the start, my reading speed was not where it needed to be. In my preliminary test, as a seventeen year old, I was reading at around a sixth grade efficiency. This really took a toll on my ACT score, since the test is timed and requires a lot of reading. I knew I was bright and the potential to read faster and score better, but my eyes had trouble focusing. Throughout my vision therapy I noticed steady improvements and by the end, my reading speed and efficiency was at the level of a third year college student. Thanks to this improvement, I was able to reach my goal, and scored a 33 on the ACT.

Last spring (2008), I had had a mediocre baseball season, and I was getting worried. Having just finished my junior year of high school, that summer was going to be my last chance to be noticed by the colleges. As it turns out, the vision therapy which I had originally done to improve my reading, helped a great deal with baseball as well. I felt like I could track the ball out of the pitcher's hand and could read the spin on a curve-ball like never before. As it turns out, I led the Midwest region in home runs over the summer with nineteen, and was offered a baseball scholarship by the University of Michigan! I doubt any of this would have worked out had it not been for the vision therapy.

Lastly, I would like to thank my vision therapist, Dr. Lindsey, Dr. Fortenbacher and everyone at WoW Vision Therapy. You all really made a difference."

Cameron Luther

How can vision therapy enhance your baseball performance?

Although an athlete may have 20/20 vision, this measurement only addresses one of the many components which contribute to the visual system.  It's possible there may be a deficit in the areas of eye teaming, eye focusing, eye tracking, peripheral awareness, depth perception or visualization that would hinder one's ability to perform to their fullest potential. 

Vision is a skill which can be trained, thereby making it possible to improve performance.  One of the fundamental vision skills is tracking, or the ability to follow a moving object.  Imagine standing at home plate and having a 100 mph pitch coming towards you.

Being able to track adequately is a necessary skill to have in order to make contact with the ball.  Or, maybe you're a catcher behind the plate.  Isn't it expected that you watch the pitch coming in, while still being aware of the players running the bases?

Activities that emphasize peripheral awareness would be stressed during  sports vision thearpy for a catcher.  Depth perception is also an important element for any baseball/softball player.  If you are in the outfield and a fly ball is hit directly at you, judging the timing and location of the ball accurately is critical.  Good depth perception will enable you to make the appropriate adjustments in your field position in order to catch the ball.

The above paragraph specifically deals with baseball/softball, but the same arguments can be made as to why it's necessary to have adequate visual skills in any sport.

A large part of sports vision therapy is about letting patients explore new situations.  Because vision is a learned process, we can rely on these new experiences to make us more successful in the future.  Sports vision therapy is a way in which we can accelerate this exploration process and have fun while doing it!

Read more about what some of our patients are saying in sports vision success stories!

Lindsey Stull, OD

Success is Riding a Bike!

William came prepared to his 3 month progress evaluation. He brought his bike! Prior to vision therapy William could not ride his bike. This was a major frustration. While he finished his VT in February 2007 (the snowiest month of the winter), William shows us (along with his mother and vision therapist, Denise) how he is now applying his newly developed vision skills. Congratulations William!