Vision, Reading and Dyslexia Evaluation
Why does your bright child struggle with reading and writing?
Is it a problem breaking a stream of sound into its parts (phonemic awareness)?
Is it a difficulty with looking at a symbol and rapidly responding with a sound (automatic naming)?
Can your child listen to you read for an hour but not stand to look at print for 10 minutes (convergence insufficiency/general binocular dysfunction)?
Can your child not perceive the difference between a “b” and a “d” or a “was” and a “saw” (visual processing dysfunction).
Can your child not fine tune visual attention to see the parts of a word or the position of a word in a paragraph unless a finger or pointer is used (oculomotor dysfunction / tracking problem / visual crowding).
Does your child not see pictures in the mind’s eye (aphantasia)?
Has your child’s ability to see the words in the mind’s eye (visualization) been ignored in favor of an auditory approach to reading and spelling?
Does your child have a short circuit between the eyes and the hands (poor eye-hand coordination, lags in development of visual motor integration)
Are visual/spatial challenges magnifying the severity of dyslexia?
Is my child’s vision dominant or will the hands still need to be used in a multi-sensory approach?
At Cook Vision Therapy Center, these and more are the questions we’ve been asking and helping to answer for over forty years. Our success depends not on enhancing just visual abilities but seeing that these abilities transfer to reading and writing.
To do so, we also work with parents, schools, reading specialists, occupational therapists, speech and language specialists, and educational psychologists. Reading is complex. But as our testimonials suggest, sometimes a simple answer can produce a profound result.
Call for a free phone consultation to see if you are a good candidate for our vision/reading/dyslexia approach.
Our evaluation will explore the following areas:
Visual Interference with Reading
- Case history used by doctor for clues on the nature of the reading problem
- Any need for eyeglasses
- Eye coordination problems causing discomfort, fatigue, visual confusion, or avoidance of the careful, detailed seeing used in learning to read.
- Visual attention/tracking problems making it hard to align eyes and attention on individual parts of a word or individual words in a line of print
- Visual processing deficits causing b and d reversals
- Eye-hand coordination problems adding to handwriting problems
- Unavailable or unused visualization skills not allowing words and parts of words to be seen “in the mind’s eye”.
Dyslexia screening
- The ability to quickly name symbols (automatic naming)
- The ability to the hear the individual sounds in a word (phonemic awareness)
- The general status of decoding skills
The above description summarizes our vision and reading evaluation. Our purpose it to remove any visual roadblocks that are magnifying reading problems or dyslexia or reducing performance on psychoeducational testing.
For a formal dyslexia diagnosis required for school placement or accommodations, you will need a complete psycho-educational or neuro-psychological evaluation. Our patient consultant, after hearing exactly how reading problems are affecting your life, will be happy to supply the name of an appropriate practitioner.
Check Out Our Resources
Dr. Cook’s Publications:
- Authored books VISUAL FITNESS and WHEN YOUR CHILD STRUGGLES.
- Published articles in top optometric journals.
- His article “Eyesight, infinity and the human heart” was voted “Best Non-Technical Article” by the Association of Optometric Editors.
When Your Child Struggles
Visual Fitness
