Happy Holidays from your friends at the Vision & Conceptual Development Center! While this is far from an exhaustive list, the following gift suggestions all support development of visual-spatial skills. Many are favorites in our office and homes, and most of the gifts in the elementary and up category are fun for a variety of ages and can be tailored to various skill levels. If you have questions about how to adjust the difficulty level of a gift for a particular person, ple

Vision Therapy summer special: $197 (regular $245) for each 45-minute session. Attend 3 or more sessions in a calendar week and get an additional 5% off. Valid for virtual or in-person sessions. Sign Up Today! Where in the world is Kate “Sandeigo”? Explore geography through art, culture, and food as our world-traveling vision therapist, Kate, shares her favorite destinations. Acting UP!  Develop your public speaking skills, ability to read with emotion, and the art of pretend

#readsslow #summercamp #visionproblems #eyeturn #visualsymptomsofaconcussion #summer #visualspatial #reading #visiontherapy #lazyeye #visionconcussion #readingcomprehension #dyslexia #convergence #convergenceinsufficiency #vision #visualinformationprocessing #eyetracking #books #strabismus #homework #dysgraphia #esotropia #hatestoread #skipslines #exotropia #backtoschool #visiontest #eyestrain #hatesreading #visualperceptual #learning #skipswords #visionrehabilitation #losesp

Imagine developing three months of improvement in visual skills in as little as two weeks! This is a great option for those with: Vision challenges of lower complexity, or who just want a jump start A busy Fall schedule– school, sports– not a lot of time to dedicate to a traditional vision therapy program Trouble keeping up with prescribed home vision therapy practice Motivation to get their problem solved quickly, such as upcoming SAT/ACT or college The Summer Accelerator Pr

—Amanda Zeller Manley, OD, FCOVD R.M., a 28-year-old man, was getting headaches more and more frequently when using a screen. As someone who spent most of his workday on the computer, this was a problem. A previous eye doctor told him he was out of luck, too old to fix his problem. R.M. had amblyopia, and his new eye doctor had referred him to me. Dr. Jeffrey Kraskin Last weekend was the 61st Annual Kraskin Invitational Skeffington Symposium (KISS), held in Bethesda, MD. One

It is important to understand that while our eyes take in visual information, that information is sent to the brain where it is processed. If the information that is sent to the brain is faulty, it can make learning very difficult. While learning disability websites list a variety of accommodations that can help children with Visual Information Processing Disorders, it is important for parents and educators to understand that these are signs that a correctable vision problem

April is National Autism Awareness Month, and there has been a lot of information in the news about the rising rates of autism spectrum disorders. The CDC now estimates that as many as 1 in 68 children are now being diagnosed with ASD. This is particularly frightening as it’s not well understood what  is behind this abrupt rise. While such research is ongoing, it’s important to consider what we as parents and providers can do right now to improve the quality of life of those

The most recent Review of Optometry has three news items emphasizing the importance of infant and child eye and vision evaluation– not just a screening done by the pediatrician or school nurse. The first describes how retinoblastoma, a rare but potentially fatal eye cancer found in children, can be detected by the appearance of a white pupil in baby photos. It used to be thought that early stage eye cancer couldn’t be detected this way, but a recent study found that early dis

I recently had a discussion with a parent about behavior and vision problems. A mom of photo from Newsbusters.org one of our patients told me that the biggest change she has noticed is that, “It’s not nuclear war anymore,” when she tells her daughter it’s homework time. This makes perfect sense to me, and we hear similar stories all the time. If you, as an adult, were asked to do something frustrating, arduous and painful, on a daily basis, you would eventually refuse. You mi

Image courtesy of adamr/ FreeDigitalPhotos.net. —Amanda Zeller Manley, O.D., F.C.O.V.D. It’s always nice when research proves the benefit of what we’ve already been doing in clinic. For the last several years, as e-readers have become more prevalent, I have been recommending them to many of my patients. In our clinic, we have found that by increasing the font size (which also increases letter/word spacing and decreases the number of words per line), many of our vision therapy

The September issue of Vision & Learning News has news you can use, just in time for back to school. Are your kids having vision issues that keep them from learning as well as they should? Are they working too hard to get their homework done? The 5 most common signs that a vision problem may be interfering with your student’s ability to read and learn are: Skips lines, rereads lines Poor reading comprehension Homework takes longer than it should Reverses letters like “b” into

This long-awaited text provides therapists and parents interventions for use at home, school, and therapy offices. Involving affect-based Floortime approaches and other problem-solving experiences, these strategies address unrecognized challenges that often derail life competencies, learning, and development. More about the book and authors here. Please join us for this informal gathering where you can chat with the authors and have them autograph your copy of the book while

Last night, February 24, 2011, we hosted a mini-symposium at the new and improved Vision & Conceptual Development Center. We had fifteen people in attendance representing a variety of professional backgrounds. Our first speaker was Joseph Manley, MD, discussing the American Academy of Pediatrics position statement on Learning Disabilities, Dyslexia and Vision. Dr. Manley’s premise is that the AAP is ignoring peer-reviewed research and evidence-based medicine in their asserti

There is a lot of opinion on the internet, some good, some bad, and a lot that is completely confounding. I recently came across a post on mothering.com in which the original poster describes her daughter’s success in vision therapy and the significant positive changes that have occurred in her life as a result. Great! We have patients in our office every day who tell of the improvements they see in school, work, hobbies, and many other areas of daily life. I always love hear