Learners with reading problems: Can it be vision? Part 1

In our schools across the country, we find thousands of learners who just can’t manage reading. In the lower grades, children struggle to learn to read, and in the higher grades, they cannot read to learn. In all other respects, they seem to be normal and just as intelligent as their reading classmates.

This is so sad. We know that these children start school with an eagerness to learn. Then they are confronted with reading and in spite of trying really hard, cannot do it. They fail and fail again. The primary path to learning is through reading, so this first experience of school, of the world of learning and education, has become a disaster.

In spite of the high number of children with reading problems, not all teachers or their schools are aware of the visual problems that may underlie the difficulties. Integrated Learning Therapy (ILT) practitioners are confronted on a daily basis with families who report that their child’s eyesight has been tested and found to be normal. But they still can’t read.

The truth is that vision for reading requires far more than is tested in a standard eye examination. This aims at identifying refractive errors (near or far-sightedness, astigmatism) or an eye turning in (strabismus). These problems are caused by irregular eyeball shapes which prevent the image focused by the lens from falling accurately onto the retina.

Reading requires more than accurate focusing – it also needs good binocular vision. This is the process requiring several sets of nerves and muscles which make it possible for the two eyes to work together so that an image falls on the centre of each retina, then fuses into one and finally has the lens focus the image. Binocular vision is what enables us to see in three dimensions, to estimate distance and basically is crucial for almost everything we do with our eyes. Reading especially requires good binocular vision so that the eyes can fixate effortlessly on a visual target; images appear clearly as one; the eyes are able to track along letters, words and sentences or shift from one target to another. A child with poor binocular vision may show other problems as well. She may appear clumsy, have trouble stacking blocks or pouring water into a cup – all because she cannot judge space accurately.

All of this means that a child may not be visually ‘ready’ by the time they begin school. The question of why puzzles us, and we have no definitive answer. The changing nature of children’s games may be questioned. Instead of games of the past that challenged visual-motor coordination have been replaced by electronic and battery-operated toys, leading to a lack of practice of the visual system. TV occupies a significant percentage of children’s leisure time without providing practice for the visual system.

If reading is a problem, then the child’s vision needs closer investigation. This should be carried out by a Developmental or Behavioural Optometrist, who is a professional with additional training in Binocular Vision and can help a child with Visual Therapy to improve binocularity.

Unfortunately, there are few such specialists in our country so if you are not in an area where you have access to a Developmental Optometrist, you can see if you have an Integrated Learning Therapist (ILT) close to your school or community. ILT practitioners are trained to screen for binocular issues and have the tools to very successfully help children whose reading problems are causing them so much stress.

Visit our website at www.ilt.co.za to learn more about this approach, find a list of available practitioners and also consider a training course with us. These courses help teachers learn more about neurodevelopment and learning as well as helping to identify the underlying causes of learning difficulties. The courses are accredited with SACE for CPTD points and with ETDP-SETA for credits towards further qualifications.

You are welcome to write to us at info@ilt.co.za for more information.

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Martin Doherty, writing for The Conversation, says that at the age of about four, children reach important milestones in brain development.

One of these is a huge improvement in understanding others’ thoughts and feelings. This is the start of empathy. Another is in spatial thinking—understanding how objects are positioned and related. This is the beginning of the ability to read maps.

Martin and his colleague, Catherine Sayer, conducted a study with 175 two to five-year-olds to explore how children are able to use scale models to figure out where something is in the real world. At about four, children are able to use a scale model of a room to work out where something is. We thought that this might result from children’s understanding of how one thing can represent something else. But we actually found that four-year-olds’ ability to use scale models came from their spatial abilities.

At the same age, children start to understand that someone’s behaviour is due to what that person believes, not necessarily what is really the case. This has interesting consequences.

If you’ve played hide-and-seek with young children, you may have noticed that they aren’t always very good at it. They love the ritual of looking in all the wrong places first, but beforehand they may tell you where they are going to hide, hide in the same place every time, or not be especially hidden.

After their fourth birthday, they get much better at hide and seek. They understand that the seeker looks in the wrong places because they don’t know where the hider is.

At about three to four children also start to tell lies. They realize they can make someone believe something that isn’t true.

Understanding symbols

Martin’s earlier research with fellow psychologist Josef Perner suggests that four-year-olds don’t just start to understand how others’ minds work. Figuring this out is part of the development of an understanding of “representation”—that symbols, like thoughts, words, or pictures, can be used to stand for something else.

Children start to think about how words relate to objects. This means, for instance, knowing that “animal” can refer to something you already have a name for, such as “rabbit”. This might help children learn the new word.

Their ability to use a understand the components of pictures also improves around this age. Very young children use a lot of trial and error to complete a jigsaw, picking up random pieces to see if they fit. By the time they are about four years old, they start to use the picture as a guide, trying to connect lines and match bits of colour, while checking the guide picture on the box lid.

Developmental experiments

Another ability children develop at around four is using scale models. A classic set of developmental experiments involved a model of a regular household room. The real room had typical furniture—sofa, table, cupboard and so on—and the model had miniature versions laid out in the same way.

Children were shown where something was hidden in the model and told to find an object hidden in “the same place” in the room. Children of around four can find the object using the identical layouts. If shown a sticker under a particular chair in the model room, for example, they can go straight to the “same” chair in the other room. This is the fundamental understanding required to read maps.

Adults see scale models and maps as representations. Maps represent a town or a country. A scale model of, say, the Eiffel Tower represents the real thing. At first, Martin suspected children’s ability to use scale models is more evidence of understanding representation at this age.

He was wrong. Instead, the researchers found that this ability is based on a development in children’s spatial abilities that also occurs at about four. This is the ability to think about spaces and where objects are within them. Spatial abilities help with maths skills, and good spatial ability is linked to an interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Their experiment was simple. They compared the model room task with a test of understanding how representation works. The two abilities develop around the same age, but they found they were not related. Children who could do one task couldn’t necessarily do the other.

They also had a test of purely spatial ability. Children who passed the model room task also passed the spatial task. So it looks like the model room task relied on children‘s spatial thinking.

They don’t yet know why two important but apparently unrelated abilities arise at the same time. Perhaps it’s related to changes in the growing brain at this interesting age.

Provided by The Conversation.

Image supplied by Freepik.