Special Needs

The Minnesota Vision Therapy Center has helped many children and adults with special needs such as Down’s syndrome, mental retardation, and pervasive developmental disorder (PDD).  Autism and Cerebral Palsy are two of the most common special-needs conditions that can benefit from vision therapy. 

Cerebral Palsy
Cerebral Palsy (CP) is a condition in which brain damage near the time of birth results in a lack of muscle control. Many of these individuals are highly intelligent despite difficulties moving their hands, legs, lips, and tongue as well as their eyes.  Over half of the children with cerebral palsy have eyes that noticeably drift or wander. If the eyes drift only part of the time, vision therapy may help with such cosmetically noticeable eye-muscle coordination problems.  There are, however, a number of individuals with CP whose eyes appear straight but still have treatable eye-muscle coordination problems that affect coordination or cause the print to blur and run together. It is estimated that 90% of children with CP have trouble keeping the print clear when reading.  

Autism
Vision problems are very common in individuals with autism. Many individuals with autism spectrum disorders are visually defensive and have hyper-sensitive vision. They are unable to visually fixate, and rely on a constant scanning of their surroundings in order to ascertain meaning. They have problems integrating their central and peripheral vision, and often seem to be looking off to the side of an object or appear to be staring off into space. Many individuals with autism are not able to use their central vision system for any length of time, and are constantly distracted by what is going on around them. They are unable to get detailed information about their environment, because they cannot use their central vision properly. Seeing how the visual system relates to motor planning, speech and perceptual abilities, it follows that these areas will also be influenced by poor visual skills. Because they do not integrate the two visual systems well, individuals with autism may sometimes shut down their peripheral system altogether, and become obsessed on an activity for excessive periods of time.