Some brilliant children have tremendous potential locked inside their brains.
This potential stems from innate patterns of thinking and learning, which are associated with high levels of creativity, strong problem-solving, and three-dimensional thinking.
They are dyslexic.
While dyslexia is not a vision issue, a substantial number of children with dyslexia have visual problems. Although a learning-related vision problem may sometimes be misidentified as dyslexia because of their similarities, it is more common that children with dyslexia also have a visual component that contributes to their difficulties.
Though dyslexia is a language condition, approximately one-third of dyslexic children complain of eye strain and/or visual distortions.
Here are 10 common problems exhibited by children who struggle to learn:
- They have difficulty with time.
- They learn well through hands-on experiences.
- They seem bright, articulate, and may have a high IQ, but struggle to read.
- They complain of dizziness, clumsiness, nausea, and headaches while reading, playing sports, or while doing fine-motor visual tasks.
- They have difficulty staying on task and paying attention; instead, they zone out and daydream.
- They tend to be called lazy, careless, or are labeled with behavioral problems.
- They have poor depth perception and peripheral vision (or some dyslexics have keen and observant visions skills)
- They transpose, omit, substitute, and reverse words and letters when reading and writing.
- They have difficulty writing and often have messy handwriting.
- They may confuse left with right.
Because so many visual systems and skills are involved in reading, many of the symptoms of visual disorders mimic signs of dyslexia. The problems listed above may be demonstrated by both dyslexic children and those with functional vision problems.
The differences between the two classifications are subtle, and even professional dyslexia therapists may not suspect a vision deficiency as the root of the problem.
Consequently, the first stop on your way to identifying the cause of your child’s academic challenges is the office of a developmental optometrist to have him conduct a comprehensive functional vision examination on your child, to test all visual skills that are critical to everyday life – in the classroom and everywhere else.
Have you ever taken your child for a comprehensive vision test?
This information is so interesting. Recently, my six year old grandson began wearing glasses. His wise optometrist advised his mother his reading and writing challenges were related to weakened eye muscles. He told her catching it now, glasses may only be required for a couple of years, and my grandson should experience significant improvement in both reading and writing.
Thanks for sharing
The academic challenges children experience from vision problems are so similar to those from dyslexia that wise parents make it a priority to have their child’s vision thoroughly checked when she/he exhibits problems and starts to lag behind in school.
Thanks for sharing your grandson’s experience. I pray that he improves in leaps and bounds.
This is so interesting to me. Depth perception can be a symptom of a lot of things – including Parkinson’s’ Disease – which my father has. Our vision is so precious and could be affected by any number of things. Thanks for sharing this.
You’re welcome, Elisa. Vision is very important. About 80% of learning takes place through the visual system. And, yes, it can be an area that’s compromised in a number of health conditions.
As the wife, mother, and daughter of brilliant dyslexics, thank you for this article.
Thank you for your affirmation. My daughter is dyslexic. You are correct – they are brilliant and creative in so many different ways.
This is such an informative post; and I learn so much each time I read your posts..
I was not aware that these issues can get misdiagnosed so often
Most parents are not aware of that either, Vidya.