ADHD and Vision Problems share the symptoms in many ways. But treatment options are totally different.

Here are some symptoms of functional vision problems, many of which are like symptoms found with ADHD:

• Struggles with reading and/or writing despite being bright
• Covers one eye when reading
• Develops disruptive classroom behaviors or cannot sit still
• Tests poorly, despite knowing the material
• Takes a lot of time to complete homework and assignments
• Has a short attention span
• Talks during instructions and distracts other students
• Loses her place while reading, sees double, skips lines or words
• Careless when working, making frequent mistakes
• Performs strongly in the beginning of the assignment but can’t make it to the end because of fatigue and anxiety.

 Decarlo, Dawn K., et al. “ADHD and Vision Problems in the National Survey of Children’s Health.” Optometry and Vision Science, vol. 93, no. 5, 2016, pp. 459–465., doi:10.1097/opx.0000000000000823.

For the children with diagnosis of ADHD, there are three times higher risk to have functional vision problems. What is more, these vision problems make it hard for them to finish schoolwork in a timely fashion or to pay attention. Researchers shows that vision problems affect children’s “executive function” — the higher-order cognitive processes used to plan, pay attention, and organize time and space.

Without efficient visual skills, the act of reading can be very frustrating. To the child with learning-related vision problems, the reading becomes unbearable. His/her frustrations can spill over into behaviors like ADD/ADHD or result in anxiety or depression. 

According to the American Optometric Association, 35-40% of all children with learning disabilities have visual problems. Specifically, at least 20% of individuals with learning disabilities have been found to have prominent visual information processing problems, and 15-20% of them have problems with visual efficiency skills.

The treatment of choice for the vision problems are glasses prescription and /or Vision therapy. 

At Academy of Vision and Learning, we evaluate you or your child’s vision skills and visual information processing skills and we also treat the vision problems.