A Rationale for the Optometric Treatment and Management of Children with Learning Disabilities

The effects of Optometric treatment transcend the optometrist's traditional role as a specialist in primary visual problems such as refractive errors and binocular disorders. As sensory processing takes place in the brain, progressive lateralization increases and modal specificity is replaced by intermodal integration. Changes resulting from optometric visual training are not limited to the visual cortex. A higher level of expectancy extends to other areas of the brain as well. This mobilization of active visual attention ultimately provides the learning disabled child with improved analysis, coding, and synthesis of visually perceived information facilitating the transition to symbolic processing. While the multidisciplinary nature of learning disabilities is generally recognized, the special educator and the classroom teacher are the “primary care” practitioners for learning disabled children.