Therapeutic Activities to Improve Visual Issues

Tiffani Lawton, RN is the Publisher of OUR Journey THRU Autism. OUR Journey THRU Autism is an online magazine featuring various professionals, experts and authors who work with children on the autism spectrum, ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder. Tiffani leads the discussion with two amazing authors of EYEGAMES: Easy & Fun Visual Exercises.

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Rebecca Hutchins, OD, FCOVD

Rebecca obtained her Bachelors from Washington College and a Masters from American University. Having been nearsighted since the second grade, she noted that "close work" became an increasing challenge as she was preparing her Masters thesis.

After a visit with a behavioral optometrist and learning that her own eyes did not work well together she began a receiving vision therapy with much notable success. This propelled Rebecca to go back to optometry school, Pennsylvania College of Optometry, now called Salus University. With over 25 years of experience, Rebecca runs her practice in Behavioral Optometry in Longmont, CO. www.niwotvision.com

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Lois Hickman, MS, OTR, FAOTA

With over 30 years of experience in occupational therapy, Lois began her quest studying occupational therapy at Eastern Michigan University and Colorado State University. She became a member of Jean Ayers' faculty, grounded in sensory integrative theory. Lois creatively wove natural activities into her therapeutic sessions throughout her career. She created an outward bound camp experience for children with SPD, with trips to a local llama farm and to the Denver Zoo. She created hikes to goat farms and created yearly summer camps at Stonebridge Farms near Lyons, CO. She now operates JenLo Farms, offering "farm therapy" to address issues that are usually thought to be addressed in the clinic setting, without the feel of a clinic. www.peopletogether.org

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Tiffani: What are Foundation Activities?

Lois: Foundational activities are those that provide stability and help give a foundation for calm focusing, and that influences the postural muscles including ocular muscles. The senses orchestrate together and it is important to remember that vision needs light, specifically sunlight.

The visual cortex needs tactile input to develop optimally, tactile input needs movement, and movement needs stability. Then, visual perception can occur.

Tiffani: Can you discuss the importance of eye-hand /eye-body exercises?

Lois: The integration of eye/hand and eye/body begins early. The child needs to be stable enough to reach for a toy or other object, and this is the beginning of eyes directing movement. If this hasn't happened normally, then remedial activities that use this principal are important. There needs to be a real reason to reach, and it should be fun. Integrating tactile input with the stability, seeing, reaching, and manipulating is important too.

Rebecca: I frequently refer a child for Occupational Therapy prior to Vision Therapy if I find that they have poor posture (slump in the chair when I try to test), or spin on my stool. This leads me to believe that they may need to do some sensory integration work BEFORE they are ready to work with the more fine motor movements needed in vision and eye-hand coordination.

Tiffani: What do figure ground activities support?

Lois: In order to have good figure ground perception, you need to be able to converge on a specific object and to perceive its qualities. This can begin with finding clover, or pebbles or preferably anything in the natural environment. The ability to have this skill supports seeing the differences in letters, in keeping your attention on a page in the educational setting.

Tiffani: Do I Spy type games help with figure ground?

Lois: Sure they do! Start outside! Then do the real I Spy inside or outside, with objects in the environment. Then, maybe go to the books that require a lot of sustained searching and attention.

Tiffani: Can discuss the importance of visual-motor activities?

Lois: Vision naturally integrates with movement. It's the experiences a child has, beginning in infancy, as he or she moves, rolls, climbs, reaches, and sees the world from all directions, that enables the eventual ability to see objects on a page, whether musical notes or words and stories. Then, just by looking, the child can judge texture, weight of objects, and shape.

Rebecca: I'd like to mention that it's important to do visual-motor activities in the real world; our kids get so much computer time and video games are NOT the same as real world activities. I'm amazed at how many of my clients are unable to draw an aerial view of the room so that we can play "Treasure Hunt" where I hide a small object and X marks the spot on the map. We must learn to be and visualize in the real world, first or at least, too.

Tiffani: How can visualization activities support a child's development?

Rebecca: Visualization allows the child to imagine and see what is not yet, but might be. Visualization can act as a reality, and is used by athletes to enable peak performance.

Lois: A child who is stressed cannot learn. Visualization can promote a calm internal state to make it easier for the frontal lobes, the thinking brain, to function. The child eases out of the stressed, reactive state to a calm, responsive state socially as well as intellectually.

Tiffani: In your book, you mention visualization helping with spelling, reading, writing. Can you elaborate on this?

Rebecca: Visualization can be a key in working on spelling, and color can be incorporated in the letter or letters that the child tends to miss. There are many strategies to see the word, describing tall versus short letters, etc. In reading, visualization encourages the child to make pictures in their head, which enhances comprehension and memory.

Lois: With visualization, the child is able to hold a thought, picture a word, and combine spatial with linear functions, or "right and left brain" abilities.

Tiffani: I learned in pictures. I had a photographic memory. I would outline the book and take mental snapshots of the notes and refer to them during tests.

Lois: I have done exactly the same thing! I always knew, though, that first I needed to "let go" of anxiety and just go to what I had pictured in my mind.

Tiffani: Can visualization activities support children who have difficulty following directives?

Rebecca: Many children, including those on the autism spectrum, respond better to pictures of chores, tasks, etc. This engages the right brain and may have better results than written signs with the same information. A child can see the picture and then put themselves in it, doing the task and they will be able to “See it. Say it. Do it!” as described in my colleague, optometrist Dr. Lynn Hellerstein’s book of the same name.