How does your eyesight relate to your focus?

This is one of the most common questions parents will ask when they first come to see us. 

Firstly, eyesight is a ‘precondition’, and it is essential that children can see well, clearly, up close, as well as at a distance. However, it is not so much about ‘eyesight’ as it is about ‘dynamic vision’ and the link to each child’s ability to sustain focus for more extended periods of time.

Dynamic Visual Functions such as eye tracking, focusing, eye teaming, and visual processing are crucial, not just for sports and activities, but for children to manage throughout their entire school day.

In the classroom, various mediums are used for teaching – children need to look at the board, the notebook, the textbook, the screen, the teacher and so on. Any challenges in eyes working to support these different learning experiences will inevitably cause a loss in focus, an increase in frustration, and can even impact anxiety.

The more frequently a child experiences these challenges, the more inattentive the child might seem. This is just one of the key reasons we pay particular attention to ‘eye teaming’ (both eyes being able to work together to create a clear image) and how this might affect a child’s experience during schoolwork as well as homework - many of these children might otherwise be diagnosed as having ADHD.

Children whose eyes might not be ‘teaming’ (working together) might find sustaining their attention even more difficult during homework, particularly without the prompting and presence of a teacher. Plus, there is the inevitable fact that at home, children would rather focus on almost anything other than homework! Tasks that drag on in this way might lose their attention altogether.

A systematic review and Meta-analysis of 35 collective studies, including more than 3 million subjects, were published in 2022. The results confirmed the high correlation between ADHD and refractive error, lag of accommodation, convergence insufficiency, strabismus, and a range of vision-related challenges.

At Orthovision, we do not focus on the ‘symptoms’ of ADHD but instead on the cause. What else might be contributing to those feelings of restlessness and inattention?

Thousands of children who’ve joined our Integrated Cognitive Orthoptic Remediation (I-CORE) programme have also given us direct and tangible data that focusing on dynamic eye function is a significant factor in improving (or ruling out) some of the ADHD-related challenges.