Saccades are the quick, accurate movements your eyes make from one word to the next while reading. If these movements aren't accurate, your child may skip words, miss punctuation, jump to the wrong line, lose their place, or read the same sentence several times.
Eye Tracking & Focusing Problems in Orlando
QUICK LINKS
Visual Health & Learning Center
Yes. Many children with eye tracking or focusing problems have 20/20 eyesight. The challenge isn't seeing the words clearly—it's using the eyes comfortably and accurately while reading them.
During a developmental vision evaluation, our eye doctors evaluate how your eyes move, track, and work together during reading tasks. We look beyond eyesight to assess many different visual skills that affect reading comfort and performance.
Yes. When focusing becomes difficult, children and adults may experience blurred vision, eye fatigue, headaches, trouble shifting focus between near and far, and difficulty maintaining attention during reading. These symptoms often become worse the longer near work continues.
Vision therapy treats functional vision problems that may interfere with reading. It does not teach reading skills or treat dyslexia. However, as visual skills improve, many children find that reading becomes more comfortable and requires less effort.
A developmental vision evaluation typically takes about 1½ hours because we evaluate many different visual skills. This allows us to better understand how your visual system functions before making any recommendations.
Not necessarily. Treatment depends on the results of your child's evaluation. Sometimes glasses are recommended. Sometimes vision therapy is appropriate. Sometimes a combination is best. Our goal is to understand the cause before recommending treatment.
After your evaluation, your eye doctor will review the findings, explain how your visual system is functioning, and recommend the most appropriate next step. If vision therapy is recommended, your eye doctor designs a program based on your specific visual skills.
Reading Depends on More Than Clear Eyesight
To read comfortably, your eyes must move smoothly across each line, stay focused on the words, and work together as a team. When one or more of these visual skills isn't working efficiently, reading can become tiring, frustrating, and much slower than it should be.
Many children and adults with eye-tracking or focusing problems have 20/20 eyesight. The challenge isn't seeing the words; it's using the eyes comfortably while reading them.
Eye Tracking and Focusing Are Different Visual Skills
Eye tracking allows your eyes to move accurately from one word to the next without skipping, losing your place, or rereading the same line.
Focusing allows your eyes to keep words clear as they move across the page and as you shift your attention between near and distant objects.
When either skill isn't working well, reading often requires much more effort than it should. Children don't usually tell you their eyes aren't tracking well. Instead, you may notice behaviors such as losing their place while reading, skipping words or lines, using a finger to keep their place, rereading the same sentence, reading slowly, headaches during homework, avoiding reading, or difficulty copying from the board.
Losing Your Place While Reading Isn't Always a Reading Problem
Children rarely tell you that their eyes aren't working the way they should. Instead, you may notice changes in the way they read or complete schoolwork.
You may notice your child:
-
Loses their place while reading
-
Skips words or lines
-
Uses a finger to keep their place
-
Rereads the same sentence
-
Reads slowly
-
Complains that words become blurry
-
Avoids reading or homework
-
Develops headaches during near work
-
Rubs their eyes frequently
-
Becomes tired after only a few minutes of reading
-
Has difficulty copying from the board
-
Struggles to maintain attention during reading
These behaviors don't automatically mean there's a vision problem, but they may indicate that your child's visual system deserves a closer evaluation.
Eye Tracking and Focusing Help Your Eyes Work Together
Although they work together, eye tracking and focusing are two different visual skills.
When your child reads, their eyes should move smoothly from one word to the next without losing their place or skipping lines. If those movements aren't working efficiently, reading often becomes slower, more tiring, and much more frustrating. Children may skip words, reread sentences, or have difficulty keeping their place on the page.
Your eyes should also keep words clear while reading and quickly adjust when looking from a book to the classroom board, computer screen, or another object. If focusing becomes difficult, reading and other close work may lead to blurred vision, headaches, eyestrain, or difficulty maintaining attention.
Reading Shouldn't Leave Your Child Feeling Tired
Working Harder Than Classmates
Children with eye tracking or focusing problems often work much harder than their classmates.
Reading Takes Longer
Reading may take longer due to the extra effort required to keep words clear and stay on the correct line.
Homework Becomes Exhausting
Homework becomes exhausting when the visual system has to work overtime just to process what's on the page.
Attention Drifts
Attention drifts because so much effort is spent simply keeping words clear and staying on the correct line.
Your Child Is Trying Hard
This doesn't mean your child isn't trying harder than everyone else; they likely are.
The Visual System May Be the Cause
It may simply mean their visual system isn't working as efficiently as it should.
Vision Therapy Helps Build Stronger Visual Skills
Vision therapy is much like physical therapy for the visual system. Rather than strengthening muscles in the body, it helps strengthen the visual skills your eyes and brain use together every day. Vision tracking therapy and focus vision therapy are common components of a vision therapy program, helping patients build the precision and stamina their eyes need for comfortable reading and learning, and vision therapy tracking progress ensures each patient advances at the right pace. Treatment may help improve:
Tracking Accuracy
Helps your eyes move precisely from word to word without losing your place.
Focusing Flexibility
Improves the ability to shift focus quickly between near and distant objects.
Reading Endurance
Builds the stamina needed to read comfortably for longer periods without fatigue.
Visual Comfort
Reduces eye strain, headaches, and discomfort during near work and reading.
Eye Teaming
Trains both eyes to work together as a coordinated team for efficient vision.
Visual Efficiency
Helps the visual system process information with less effort and greater ease.
Every treatment program is based on the results of your developmental vision evaluation and progresses as your visual skills improve. The conditions treated by vision therapy vary widely, from tracking and focusing disorders to convergence insufficiency, and what patients achieve through vision therapy depends on their specific diagnosis and commitment to the program. Some programs also incorporate optometric multi-sensory training techniques, and may include tools such as eccentric circles vision therapy to further develop eye teaming and visual stamina.
A Developmental Vision Evaluation Helps Us Find the Cause
During your evaluation, our eye doctors assess how your visual system functions by evaluating:
-
Eye tracking
-
Focusing
-
Eye teaming
-
Binocular vision
-
Visual efficiency
-
Visual processing
-
Functional visual performance
Together, these findings help us understand why reading may be difficult and whether a functional vision problem is present.