Vision Therapy and Sports

Vision Therapy & Sports

Strong visual skills are critical to sports success. Not much happens in sports until your eyes instruct your hands and body as to what to do! We can measure and successfully improve eye-hand coordination, visual reaction time, peripheral vision, eye focusing, eye tracking and teaming, visualization skills, and more. Please continue reading to find out how children and adults improve coordination and sports ability through Vision Therapy.

Chelsea was finally able to ride a two-wheeler bicycle this spring. She has always had trouble with balancing on bikes, but now she’s riding her scooter really well, and her balance and coordination seems to be maturing. She doesn’t have to struggle to read now either. What a relief!
M. P.

Before Vision Therapy, tears were a daily part of school for Rachel and mom. Once we started therapy, the tears and frustration were gone. Even the knowledge that we could “fix” the problem helped.

Things we never noticed, or thought about, have greatly improved as well. Things like coordination, left/right knowledge and visualization; things we had written off as being “that’s just Rachel” have greatly improved. We remember her trying to play basketball and she had such a hard time. Within weeks of Vision Therapy her basketball skills improved so much the coaches were amazed.

We are happy we decided to put Rachel through Vision Therapy. We will admit we cannot wait to see what six more months of therapy will bring.
Christine J., Rachel’s parent

Vision Therapy has lifted an amazing weight off my shoulders. It has allowed me to concentrate more in class by not having to strain my eyes to the point where I can’t see or stand to keep my eyes open to pay attention. For the sports aspect of this therapy, it has allowed me to focus on the baseball while hitting more easily. I have improved my shooting abilities in basketball and have improved my hand-eye coordination. I would highly recommend this therapy to anyone struggling at doing and seeing what others find natural.
J.M., 3/29/01

Since Vision Therapy, Jessica has seen great changes in her ability to play soccer. She has become more confident in her playing. Her coordination is so much better. Before Vision Therapy, Jessica just stood around in mid-field, but now she is a vital part of the team.

We have also seen some nice changes in regards to Jessica’s behavior during homework time. She is no longer having headaches in the afternoon after school, and she is getting her homework done in a more timely fashion. Jessica has not discovered the magic of reading yet, but I believe that will come with time. We discovered her vision problem during her teenage years, so her bad experiences with reading have yet to be overcome.

I would highly recommend Vision Therapy for someone who is considering this service.
Leigh Ellen Lively, Jessica’s parent, 2/25/03

Lindsey is so much happier after Vision Therapy. She has been really struggling in school, but we are watching a turn around this year. Lindsey is beginning to love reading. She used to struggle to finish a book, but now she is reading two books a week. Her reading comprehension is improving by leaps and bounds!

Lindsey has always been very active in school and sports, but I’ve seen such a change in her spirit this year. She’s more confident of all her abilities. She is much more coordinated in her sports. She almost always missed the goal in soccer, because she couldn’t line the ball up with the goal. That is not a problem anymore. She is doing really well right now in basketball. It is so nice to have my happy child back!

Both of my girls have benefited greatly from Vision Therapy. We were skeptical at first, but I’m so glad that we had both our girls treated. They are on their way to success in all walks of their lives. Thank you.
Leigh Ellen Lively, Lindsey’s parent, 2/25/03

Since Vision Therapy, I have been able to throw a baseball and before I started therapy, I wasn’t able to do even that. I am also able to write a paper for school with minor mistakes. My Bat mitzvah was on May 4th and that came very easy to me.

Vision Therapy is a great service. It helped me and it can help others.
Aly Grushkin, young patient, 5/31/02

Simon’s coordination is much better. We are continuing to overcome fine-motor problems.
Simon Toffell’s Parents

Our daughter is a very good student who used to breeze through all her assignments except those requiring extensive reading. Long history or science assignments caused her great anxiety and took a long, long time to accomplish. Since she had Vision Therapy, she has been handling her reading packets easily and ” best of all ” happily. She has easily reduced her homework time to an hour! Similarly, she is a good athlete ” a gymnast and a swimmer ” who could never make any team sport requiring hand-eye coordination. She now feels comfortable pitching, and catching, and making baskets. Finally, she no longer gets car sick. Vision Therapy is the greatest.
Daughter’s name withheld by parent request

Prior to Vision Therapy, Hans’ performance in school and sports was suffering. His coordination was really off. When he went to catch a baseball, he missed a lot of them due to what looked like a major delay problems.

After several months of Vision Therapy and very little baseball practice during the winter months, he went to spring tryouts where he didn’t miss a pop fly. Our recreation director made the comment that he’d never seen so much improvement in any player from one season to the next.

Academically, the big improvement has been in the classroom. He was having a lot of difficulty keeping up with the class because it took him a lot longer to focus on the board after focusing on desk work and vice-versa. It only took a couple of months of therapy and he reported that the vision delay was gone. Vision Therapy has been hugely beneficial to Hans’ development.
Sarah B., Hans’ parent, 8/6/02

We are amazed by David’s improvement. Vision Therapy has changed his everyday life. Before Vision Therapy, David could not even catch a ball and now he is playing flag football and is much more active.
by Marcia and Ted Shuck, David’s parents

The doctor wrote the following comments about David Shuck, age 9:

Problems prior to Vision Therapy:

Reading and writing difficulties
Fine motor difficulty
Avoided gross motor activities
Disparities in psycho-educational testing indicated possible visual perceptual motor deficit

Benefits of Vision Therapy:

IQ increased significantly
Improvement in all visual area
Writing has improved
His work has more detail
Able to do more difficult puzzles
Reading fluency improved

Before Vision Therapy, Dustin hated any activity that dealt with a ball of any sorts. Roller-skating, bicycle riding, climbing trees … all came naturally for him. However, if you threw a ball at him, nine out of every ten times it would hit him in the face. On the tenth, he would just plain miss it. Now Dusty can’t get enough of ball games and the thought of the ball getting away from him is just too much for him to handle. You would think that he was getting the salary of a professional ball player the way he dives for it.

This is one aspect of the therapy that we wish had not been tampered with. Pants generally have a life span of two days before we’re mending them with iron-on patches. At this rate, keeping this child properly clothed may wind up being more costly than the vision therapy.
Mrs. Boxer, Dustin’s mother