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3 Reasons Why Your Child’s ADD or ADHD Might Be a Vision Problem
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3 Reasons Why Your Child’s ADD or ADHD Might Be a Vision Problem

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Now that fall has arrived and students have a couple months of school under their belts, the time is approaching for parent-teacher conferences. While it’s always troubling when your child’s teacher raises concerns about their classroom performance, especially if it’s a sudden development, don’t automatically assume that it’s due to an attention disorder. Many people don’t realize that several of the symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD) coincide with symptoms of vision problems.

3 Reasons Why Your Child’s Add Or Adhd Might Be A Vision Problem

If your child seems bright but their classwork doesn’t demonstrate this, or seems to be a better auditory learner than a visual one, stop and take a closer look. If they exhibit the three following symptoms, the significant reading and learning challenges they’re struggling with could be a result of an undiagnosed binocular vision dysfunction (BVD).

1. Doesn’t pay attention in class. While it’s normal for a child’s mind to wander occasionally, the problem goes deeper with children who have BVD, which is a condition where a misalignment of the eyes makes it hard for the eyes to work together properly. This makes it challenging for them to quickly switch their focus from the board to their paper, and they often have difficulty taking notes.

This is understandably frustrating for these students, and as a result they often fall behind, or even give up completely and start talking and playing around instead. Subsequently, what is really a vision issue appears to the teacher to be an attention problem.

2. Can’t stay on task. Due to eye teaming problems caused by BVD, up-close tasks like reading and writing become very laborious for children with this condition. Visual symptoms of BVD such as blurred or double vision can make trying to bring a single, clear line of text into focus a slow and painful process. Sometimes the words even appear to swim on the page. All of these symptoms cause varying degrees of visual discomfort as well. While some children try to work through the discomfort and continue reading and writing, albeit slowly, others simply give up in defeat.

To a teacher who isn’t always able to give one-on-one attention, it’s easy for these problems to escape their notice. To them it seems like the child constantly needs redirection, or simply has a short attention span, when it’s actually an unconscious response by the child to their frustration and visual discomfort.

3. Makes silly mistakes. Children with BVD come to know that they have a limited amount of time to complete their work before their visual symptoms return. As a result, they often rush through their assignments in an effort to complete them before the strain on their eyes brings about the usual headaches, blurry vision and double vision. This often leads them to make careless mistakes or miss important details.

Hence, a perfectly intelligent, hard-working student can appear to the teacher to be lazy and careless.

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Dr. Sandy DiPonio earned her optometry degree from Illinois College of Optometry in 1996. She is a highly skilled and experienced eye care professional dedicated to giving her patients of all ages excellent and compassionate care. She has a wide variety of experience in binocular vision, pediatric and adult eye care, ocular disease and contact lens fitting. She strives to provide each of her patients the best quality of life they can achieve with their vision through knowledge and education of treatment options.

Dr. DiPonio is a member of the American Optometric Society and Michigan Optometric Society.

Dr. Sally Hoey has been practicing optometry since graduating from Michigan College of Optometry in 2001. During her time in optometry school, she developed an interest in binocular vision, culminating in a senior thesis involving binocular vision.

Prior to joining Vision Specialists of Michigan, Dr. Hoey specialized in the diagnosis and treatment of vision-related learning problems as well as other binocular vision disorders. Her other areas of interest include specialty contact lens fittings and treating dry eye. Dr. Hoey strives to provide her patients with clear, comfortable vision while meeting their individual needs at the same time.

Dr. Hoey had the opportunity to provide eye care on an optometric mission trip to Guyana, South America and vision screenings at a local medical clinic. She is a member of the American Optometric Association, Michigan Optometric Association, Metropolitan Detroit Optometric Society and the College of Optometrists in Vision Development.

Dr. Jennifer Place graduated with honors from Michigan College of Optometry in 2001.

Before joining Vision Specialists of Michigan, she specialized in treating pediatric and adult patients with binocular vision disorders and vision-related learning problems, as well as fitting specialty contact lenses and managing various types of ocular disease. She enjoys working with patients with unique visual needs, and she takes great pride in providing all patients with highly customized care.

Dr. Place has volunteered for Opening Eyes, a program that provides eye exams to the athletes of the Michigan Special Olympics, and she participated in an international mission to St. Lucia to provide eye care to those in need. Dr. Place is a member of the Detroit Optometric Society, the Michigan Optometric Association, the American Optometric Association, the College of Vision Development, and the Optometric Extension Program Foundation.

Dr. Mary Jo Ference has been practicing optometry since 1990 upon graduating from Ferris State University- Michigan College of Optometry, and is certified in Low Vision Rehabilitation. She has worked at Sinai-Grace Hospital systems for over 20 years before joining Vision Specialists of Michigan in 2013 to work with binocular vision disorders. Her clinical areas of expertise include visual rehabilitation of pediatric and adult patients who have suffered from brain trauma, injury or disease. She has taught both optometry and ophthalmology residents at Sinai Grace Hospital. Dr. Ference has sat on numerous boards, including Sinai Grace Hospital, Berry Out-Patient Surgical Center, and Seedlings Braille Books for the Blind. She is actively involved in area school districts to provide education, training and access for students, teachers, OT’s and PT’s to eye care service rehabilitation information. Dr. Ference has lectured extensively nationally and internationally.

Dr. Debby Feinberg began practicing Optometry in Oakland County in 1983, upon graduating from Illinois College of Optometry. She joined her father, Dr. Paul C. Feinberg, at Mall Optical Center, which was located in Summit Place Mall.

Since 1995 Dr. Feinberg has been developing the field of NeuroVisual Medicine which is the optometric subspecialty that identifies and treats neurological / medical symptoms that originate directly or indirectly in the visual system.

Dr. Feinberg has been performing pioneering work with Binocular Vision Dysfunction (BVD), a condition where a vision misalignment (frequently subtle) creates difficulties with the two eyes working together to create a single 3-dimensional image, and difficulties with the two eyes following that image as it moves.

The symptoms caused by BVD are not usually associated with problems with the visual system, and include headache, dizziness, anxiety and panic, persistent post-concussive symptoms, gait instability and balance problems, frequent falls, neck pain, motion sickness, nausea, and reading and learning problems.

In 2004. Dr. Feinberg established Vision Specialists of Birmingham, specifically designing the practice to accommodate the needs of the NeuroVisual Medicine patient.

In 2011, the office moved to its current location in Bloomfield Hills and updated its name to Vision Specialists of Michigan.