Vital Connections Between Vision and Learning

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Vision Therapy Center, Inc.


 

Teacher/Parent Vision and Learning Guide

www.thevisiontherapycenter.com

The information in this guide was created for teachers and parents. It provides background information on the vital connections between vision and learning.

You’ll find the following information:

• Vision and Learning Overview

• What are some of the vision skills that affect learning?

• Impact on Subjects

• What does the work of someone with vision problems look like?

• Stress Points

• Take the Vision Quiz

• Vision Therapy

• Studies

• Success Stories

• Modifications for the Classroom

• The Vision Therapy Center Contact

Vision and Learning Overview

Good vision requires your eyesight, visual pathways, and brain to all work together. When they don’t, even a person with 20/20 eyesight can experience difficulty reading, writing and processing information, as 80% of all information comes to a child through their vision.

Most people think that if a person’s visual acuity is 20/20 their vision is ‘normal’ or ‘perfect’. That’s not the case.

Visual acuity is a measure of the clarity of a person’s vision and is tested by having a patient read a line of letters on an eye chart. This test does not require the same amount and types of eye movements that reading does, so it cannot be used to determine whether a child has the visual skills necessary to read.

While clear vision is important, it is only one of many visual skills required to be able to read and learn.

·         75-90% of classroom learning comes through the visual system.

·         80% of children who are reading disabled, including dyslexics, have vision problems that can be solved.

·         25% of ALL children have a vision problem significant enough to affect their performance in school.

·         95% of first grade nonreaders had significant vision problems. They had nearly 2.5 times more visual problems than first grade high achievers.

·         In one study, 70% of juvenile delinquents had a vision problem.

·         In one California funded study, recidivism (repeat offenders) reduced from 45% to 16% when wards received on-site optometric vision therapy.

·         When a group of illiterate adults were vision screened, there was a 74% failure rate.

·         School vision screenings, such as a Snellen eyechart, detect only 20-30% of vision problems in schools.

·         Only 13 percent of mothers with children younger than 2 years of age have taken their baby for a functional well-care eye exam. Yet 1 out 10 children are at risk for having an undiagnosed vision problem.

Source: Visionandlearning.orgwww.thevisiontherapycenter.com

What are some of the skills that affect learning?

Convergence

When reading, the eyes should aim inward at the same spot in order to fixate on print. If the eyes aim at a spot in front of or behind the print, extra energy and effort is required to maintain fixation and double or overlapping vision may occur. An example is shown to the left.

Directionality

Directionality is important in understanding how similar shapes can have different meanings when they are in different orientations. To the left is an example of some letters that are commonly reversed by children with poor directionality. The letters are the exact same shape, but are called a different name depending on their orientation. This can be a difficult concept because if another object, such as a chair, is turned on its side or upside-down it is still called a chair.

Form Perception

Below is an example of an item from a visual perceptual skills test. In this particular test the child is asked to identify which form among the choices at the bottom matches the form on top. Other visual perceptual skills tests assess the child’s ability to identify a form from memory, identify which form is oriented in a different direction, identify a form that has a different size or orientation, identify a sequence of forms from memory, identify a figure hidden in ground and identify an incomplete form as if it were complete.

b d p q

Span of Recognition

Children who can read at accelerated speeds often have a good span of recognition, allowing them to recognize and process several words at one time. Children lacking this skill may only be able to see one word or letter at a time. In order to see what this would be like, try reading a sentence or paragraph while looking through a straw.

Visualization

Visualization is the ability to create mental images. Children who have vision problems may also have difficulty with visualization. This skill is important for success in many school subjects including spelling and math.

Tracking (Pursuits and Saccades)

Commonly referred to as ‘tracking’, maintaining fixation on a moving target (pursuits) or accurately switching fixation between two targets (saccades) are two types of eye movements that are essential for reading and learning.

An example of this is when your eyes reach the end of a line of print and have to accurately move from the end of that line to the beginning of the next line of print. Difficulty with these eye movements can cause a child to skip words or lose their place easily when reading.

Impact on Subjects

Considering 80% of the information you process comes through your visual system, it’s not surprising that a vision problem can affect a number of different subjects. Here’s a brief overview of how vision problems can manifest in various areas.

Reading

Vision problems affect reading in two significant ways:

·         When a student is learning to read, a serious vision problem could reduce their ability to know what they are looking at and impact their ability to remember numbers and letters.

·         When a student is reading to learn and has blurry or double vision, their ability to read for long periods of time and comprehend what they are reading can be severely reduced.

The ability to read and the ability to comprehend what is being read are two different things. Comprehending what is read is a visual process, and can be affected when the visual system is not working correctly. If a student sees words on the page as blurry or double, he or she has to use extra effort to keep the words single and clear and this can negatively impact comprehension.

Students with vision problems spend the majority of their time decoding words. Instead of reading fluidly and visualizing the words and the message as a whole, they focus on each specific word. This is a struggle, making it difficult to quickly process sections of text.

As a result, students will track text with their fingers. They’ll read a slower pace and will have fluency issues. Their reading will be marred by repetitions, insertions, omissions and substitutions.

These reading problems are all too often misconstrued as laziness on the part of the student. They are not. They are simply symptomatic of a vision problem. When corrected, it’s common for students to enjoy reading and no longer avoid it.

Math

If a student has difficulty seeing things as clear and single, they may have trouble seeing decimals and/or signs. An important skill in math is to organize what is being written and the student may have trouble lining things up and keeping their place if their visual skills are poor.

Laterality and directionality are also important concepts in math. If a student sees the orientation of numbers incorrectly, they will have difficulty completing the problem.

Students who lack visualization skills can often be found counting on their fingers or verbalizing sequences. Given enough time, they can generally compute an answer, but they tend to do poorly on timed tests. Awareness of numbers and what they mean as well as being able to visualize numbers and quantities, are critical to success in math and can be impacted if a child has a vision problem.

It should be noted that a child with vision problems may do well in math but be a poor reader, primarily because math doesn’t require as many precise eye movements as reading.

Spelling

Visual recall, the ability to create a visual image based on past visual experience without currently having that experience, is a visualization skill that is critical for spelling. In spelling, it is the ability to create a mental image of a word without being able to look at the word.

Writing

Writing involves both handwriting and composition skills. It is necessary for vision to lead the hand for handwriting and this can be very difficult if the student cannot see well. In fact, often you can see in the handwriting where the student stopped looking or became fatigued. Difficulty writing straight on a page is often a result of poor peripheral awareness.

There are several vision-related skills that are critical to good handwriting that may be underdeveloped in a student with vision problems. Visualization is also important in handwriting because the student needs to remember what different words look like in order to reproduce them on the page. Spatial concepts are important in handwriting to know and plan how words will go together. Good laterality and directionality are important to differentiate similarly-shaped letters in different orientations (e.g. b, d, p, q).

Visualization is also critical for writing composition because the student needs to be able to organize and re-organize the composition in his or her head.

What does the work of someone with vision problems look like?

Take a look at some of the work samples of students with vision problems:

Unequal sized print

Words moving or letters running together

Words take off and leave the page

Double print

Reversed letters

Words squished together

Words appear as splotches or streaks

Words are shaky

Stress Points

These are areas that can cause stress for students with vision problems:

• Small print

• Sustained, near point work

• Full pages of print, with blocks of text close together

• Copying from chalkboard or SMART Board to paper on desk

• Fine-motor skills

• Flickering fluorescent bulbs

• Standardized test sheets

• Random lists of spelling words

• Timed tests

• Crossword puzzles

• Reading aloud to a group without being given a warning

• Being asked to instantly identify right and left directions

Math Intervention For Students Who Struggle

For Students with Math-Related Disabilities or Math Difficulties, the Successful Educational Intervention is the Same   By David Berg, E.T. Founder/Director of the Making Math Real Institute Creator of the Making Math Real Multisensory Structured Methodologies in Mathematics, K-12 The reality for some students that math can be persistently difficult and overwhelming is hardly newsworthy. As educators and parents (and for us as well when we were kids) we continue to experience the exclamations of frustrated students, “I hate math,” “Math is boring,” “I’m dumb, I’m stupid, I’ll never be good at math,” “What’s the point of this stuff - when will I ever need to use parabolas in my life?” There are numerous valid reasons why students may feel this way, and none of the reasons I know of are the students’ fault, because there is no educational justification for any student to fail in math. Over the last 20 years in our educational system, there has been a valuable focus on literacy development in our country. Some of the significant improvements made during this time include: Increased understanding of research connecting neurodevelopment with specific instructional practices Increased use of multisensory structured reading and language programs Improved professional development for teachers to help expand understanding and application of more comprehensive and inclusive programs Improved assessment to help teachers address specific educational needs of students The results of our nationwide focus on literacy have been an important and much needed step in the right direction, yet there is still much to do in continuing this positive development. However, in our cultural focus on literacy, have we forgotten something? What about math? Math has been the neglected curriculum for far too long. For example, according to the Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC), research on reading and language far exceeds the research on math. In the 34 years I have been an educator I have witnessed the money, time, and energy spent on professional development, programs, and materials for reading and literacy far exceed the expenditures for math. In numerous districts and schools I have observed across the country, the time allotted each day for reading far exceeds the time devoted to math. The development of numeracy is of equal importance and value as is the development of literacy. Numeracy means being literate with numbers and math. As literacy refers to the ability to read for meaningfulness, to interact critically with the literature, so too, does numeracy refer to the ability to interact critically with the mathematics with depth of comprehension, not the mere memorization of procedural steps. In my opinion, the development of literacy and numeracy should be the focal points of K-12 education in our nation today. As parents and educators, we need to guarantee our high school graduates are both literate and numerate. Since there has been significant research in the area of reading, there are definitions of and widespread agreement on the nature of learning disabilities in reading, specifically, dyslexia. However, there has been relatively little research in the area of math (despite the recent upsurge since 2005), and consequently, there is no current consensus on the core deficits including definitions, or means of identifying math-related disabilities, specifically, dyscalculia. Regardless of the current lack of consensus in determining the precise nature of math disability, the existence of math-related learning disabilities is indisputable. Furthermore, researchers are attempting to distinguish between students with math-based learning disabilities versus those struggling with “math difficulties.” All of the ongoing research in mathematics is highly worthwhile and will continue to provide all of us with valuable information as developments in research progress. However, it is essential to understand that the successful intervention and remediation for students with math-based learning disabilities or math difficulties are the same. Both populations require an explicit, developmental, comprehensive, and multisensory-structured methodology in mathematics. The intervention and/or remediation must be provided by highly trained educators, thoroughly knowledgeable of the content, and capable of delivering the curriculum prescriptively in alignment with students’ individual and/or collective processing styles. Therefore, from a practical and educational standpoint it is not crucial to distinguish between math disability and math difficulty. All students need the most appropriate and most prescriptive interventions we can provide. Over the last 34 years I have worked across the country with more than 10,000 students of all ages and processing styles. According to my experience and research, at least half of our students nationwide are experiencing some degree of math difficulty. One of various indications of this widespread challenge in math is the conservative estimate that 40 – 60% of students nationwide are failing algebra I. The repeated concerns I have received from middle school, high school, community college teachers, and parents is the following: “Our students have not learned the math basics such as the multiplication facts, fractions or place value.” Representing one of many sources confirming this ongoing national problem in mathematics comes from the State of California Department of Education’s California Basic Educational Data System, retrieved December 8, 2008. According to this statewide data collected from 2003 -2008, the highest level of achievement overall for California algebra students has only been 22% scoring at proficient or higher. In addition, my research, assessment data, and experience have shown me that students with math disabilities and students who struggle do not lack the intelligence or the motivation to be successful in math. Typically, they lack the underlying perceptual and associative processing tools that enable all of us to successfully process numbers and math. In essence, processing means information in, information out, i.e., how we receive information, make sense of it, store it, retrieve it, and express it. These processing tools, known as sensory-cognitive development (“cognitive” refers to processing), help us to express what we know - they provide a direct conduit in both directions connecting processing to intelligence. Sensory-cognitive development for math refers to the specific ability of using the visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-motoric senses to engage and support the successful processing of numerical and/or mathematical symbols. Students with under-developed sensory-cognitive abilities often have limited access to memory and are characteristically challenged by learning, retaining, and applying the math facts, recalling formulas and definitions, remembering the sequences and structure of multi-step problem solving, integrating concepts with their respective procedures, and managing all the details in their procedural work. Processing exists as a means for all of us to express what we know. If the mathematical processing tools are not developed, then it appears as if we do not know the math. Just as carpenters express their craft through the practiced and developed use of tools: hammers, saws, drills, etc., we also use sensory-cognitive processing tools to express what we know about math. Imagine the carpenter with an empty tool belt. How does the carpenter express his/her craft without the tools? It is the same for students with math-related learning disabilities or who struggle in math. Without developed processing tools, they are not able to express what they know. Unfortunately, students with underdeveloped sensory-cognitive tools may be misperceived as less intelligent and less capable than their peers who, by fortune of genetic makeup, possess developed processing tools. Therefore, it is eminently possible to be highly intelligent despite the developmental lack of certain mathematically-based processing tools. A case study of a client I worked with several years ago presents a strong example supporting the distinction between processing development and intelligence. The client was 42 years of age, a graduate of M. I. T. and currently worked for NASA. According to assessment, this individual’s overall intelligence was in the 99th percentile and he presented as someone extremely accomplished, if not brilliant. However, until the moment of our work together, he had never learned the math facts. My assessment of his sensory-cognitive development for learning and retaining the math facts did indicate extreme underdevelopment. When I asked him how he managed the academic demands of rigorous math and science courses throughout his school career, he responded by telling me how he used his intelligence to create compensatory methods to solve calculations with the math facts. He also confirmed that he benefited from his strong ability to understand the concepts easily, but his compensatory methods for calculation tended to slow him down relative to his peers, and he also felt he had to work much harder than his peers, which in turn made him feel less intelligent than his peers. This client’s experience, despite the years of stress and anxiety he felt throughout school, is most unique. Through tenacity and determination he was able to endure and succeed without the benefit of a prescriptive intervention to develop the sensory-cognitive development for learning and retaining the math facts. His experience is not representative of the larger group. I have worked with thousands of students who, until receiving prescriptive interventions and remediations for developing their sensory-cognitive tools, had given up on math and furthering their integration of numeracy. In alignment with my experience and research, it is important to note that regardless of the 42-year-old client’s high intelligence and strong work ethic, his sensory-cognitive tools remained underdeveloped until he received prescriptive interventions as an adult. In other words, these sensory-cognitive tools are not maturational. They do not develop on their own as we get older. They do not develop simply because we are determined and work hard. They develop because an experienced educator has assessed that these processing tools are underdeveloped and has addressed the development of these sensory-cognitive tools with prescriptive methods. As with the 42-year-old brilliant client, I have frequently observed students express their confusion and frustration when they know they are as smart as their peers, yet have to struggle constantly in math while some of their peers make math seem effortless. According to my experience, the two strongest indications for successful remediation are 1) the delivery of math curriculum specifically designed to support and develop these crucial processing tools, and 2) the delivery of math curriculum in alignment with students’ individual processing styles to ensure they successfully process the curriculum. NOTE: Every time individuals process successfully, their processing tools get stronger and more developed. Since there is not yet a specific determination of dyscalculia, it is difficult to ascertain an accurate percentage of the population with this math-related learning disability. In my opinion and experience, it is not of primary importance to quantify the number of people specifically identified with dyscalculia or any other form of math-related learning disabilities separate from students who struggle in math. The issue of real importance is providing prescriptive help for all these students - and the methods for helping all these students is the same. However, if these students do not receive interventions that directly address the development of the math-based sensory-cognitive processing tools, the likelihood of negative outcomes increase sharply whether or not students have math-related learning disabilities or consistently struggle with math. For students who do not get their educational needs met in mathematics I have repeatedly observed an ongoing subtractive development not only in the area of math which directly underlies the pervasive and increasing gap in achievement for these students, but far more seriously in their ability to trust their own mathematical sense. As I observe these students when confronted with any component of math, I note significant anxiety in their affect and behavior. Frequently, these students do not know if their solutions are right or wrong. They cannot trust their own mathematical problem solving ability. This horrible feeling and experience, if not addressed appropriately, may lead to academic wounding. Academic wounding is the internalization of the personally based myth of the pre-conception of failure: “I hate math,” “Math is boring,” “I’m dumb, I’m stupid. I’ll never be good at math.” Academic wounding can affect all students, with or without learning disabilities. If not appropriately addressed, academic wounding may persist indefinitely into adulthood until such time as the individual repeatedly experiences authentic and indisputable success. I have personally encountered thousands of adults experience powerful releases of emotion upon realizing they were not actually “stupid,” and they could have been successful in math. These same people frequently breakdown weeping in the pain, loss, and sorrow for having believed in a most inaccurate and unnecessary personal myth. The good news is that the successful development of numeracy can begin or continue developing at any time of life. Copyright ©1996-2009 David Berg