Vision Therapy

It is believed that autistic individuals have problems coordinating their central and peripheral vision. Visual problems such as lack of eye contact, staring at spinning objects or light, fleeting peripheral glances, side viewing, and difficulty attending visually are very common in individuals with autism.

Vision Therapy is an individually prescribed program of vision "exercises" or procedures which can change the way you see. Vision Therapy is aimed toward normalizing or improving fundamental visual abilities, such as eye focusing, eye teaming, eye movements, and visual perception.

Vision Therapy must be supervised by a vision care professionals and can use many types of specialized medical equipment.

Vision Therapy programs include:

• therapeutic lenses (regulated medical devices)
• prisms (regulated medical devices)
• filters
• occluders or patches
• electronic targets with timing mechanisms
• computer software
• balance boards.

The goals of Vision Therapy are to help the autistic patient:

• organize visual space and gain peripheral stability so that he or she can better attend to and appreciate central vision
• gain more efficient eye coordination (eye teaming) and visual information processing.