How Does Vision Affect Learning?
Most of the learning done in school is dependent on VISION. If a child has to struggle to see, they are going to struggle to learn. Often children are misdiagnosed with learning disabilities such as ADHD or dyslexia.
- Do you know your child is bright but feel they aren’t learning or performing up to their potential?
- Does your child exert a lot of effort to keep up in school?
Sometimes these children are just referred to as lazy when really their visual skills are deficient and hindering their learning ability. Vision and learning are directly connected!
A major portion of what we learn is taken in through the visual system. Vision is a contributing factor to an individual’s ability to attend and respond to classroom instruction.
- There are many aspects of vision which might affect an individual’s abilities to attend and respond to teacher instruction.
- Nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism can result in blurred vision or eye strain, and relate to performance in the classroom.
- Individuals may have focusing problems which do not allow them to rapidly change focus from book to chalkboard and vice versa.
- They may have difficulty using both eyes together. This dysfunction can require excess effort to overcome and may interfere with visual information processing.
- An individual may have difficulty controlling eye movements. This could result in loss of place when reading, frequent guessing of words, need for the use of the finger to maintain one’s place, or other more subtle difficulties.
Source: www.covd.org
Learning-Related Vision Problem Facts & Figures
- Up to 25% off all school age children have vision problems significant enough to impair academic performance. The rate may be as high as 60% for those children labeled as having learning problems.
- An evaluation of the visual efficiency of beginning readers in a public school found that visual factors were the primary cause of reading failure and that most current school screenings are inadequate to detect these problems.
- A study of inner city youths found that poor vision is related to academic and behavioral problems among at-risk children.