VISION SKILLS

Fixation is the ability to direct and maintain steady, central visual attention on a target. This basic skill is developed in infancy and refined through the early years. Ocular motor skills are the neuro-muscular control skills developed to point the visual system on target and move it to either follow a moving target (pursuit eye movements), or jump from one object to another (saccadic eye movements), The infant reflexively turns the entire upper torso toward the direction of a noise, then gradually learns to turn only the head to guide the visual system. Through the toddler years the individual refines this movement system by learning to use eye muscles to replace head movement - an achievement important in visual readiness for school. Eventually vision becomes the dominate sense.

Accommodation is another component skill involving focusing the light entering the eyes. This combined lens neuro-muscular system is a network integrating the eyes and the brain. Accommodation is developed rather well by age three and further accuracy is achieved throughout the early years of development. This function deteriorates with age, causing the need for bifocals and/or reading glasses beginning at about age forty.

Additional skills are involved with teaming the two eyes together. These include convergence (the ability to direct and sustain one's eyes toward a near target) and other neuro-muscular ocular alignment activities to localize where the object is in relation to the observer.

Optometrists evaluate the development, function, and efficiency of these vision skills. Poorly developed or aberrant function of vision skills results in inefficient visual performance and/or symptoms of fatigue or discomfort. This may have a negative impact on performance in school, the job, sports, and activities of daily living. When properly diagnosed these visual inefficiencies can be effectively remediated with prescription lenses, prisms and/or vision therapy.

The symptoms typically caused by vision skill deficiencies include seeing double, losing one's place with reading, poor or slow reading ability, discomfort (eye strain or headaches) with sustained use of the eyes, clumsiness, and poor performance in sports. Difficulty processing visual Information when reading, using computers or performing any sustained visual activity might also be attributable to vision skill problems.

Members of the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (COVD) are optometrists with a special interest In vision skills and the remediation of vision skill inefficiencies. Fellows of the College have certified their competency in this area. For more information contact COVD or consult with your COVD optometrist.

Dedicated to the Enhancement of Vision

Permission to reprint the contents of this C.O.V.D. White Paper granted to P.A.V.E ® - 12/6/96 by the College of Optometrists in Vision Development..

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