FAQs

Q: How early should my child be examined?

A: It is critical to diagnose eye conditions as early as possible.  It is recommended that children receive their first baseline eye exam between 6 mos-1 year of age.  Conditions such as amblyopia (lazy eye) are much more easily treated before the age of seven years.

Q: How can I tell if my child has a vision problem?

A: Signs and symptoms of vision problems:

  • Eyes shake or randomly wander

  • Eyes are not able to follow the face of parent

  • Pupils of the eyes are excessively large or small

  • Pupils of the eyes are not black; appearance of a cloudy film in the pupil

  • Eyes cross or turn outward.  Eyes do not appear to be in alignment

  • Frequently rubs eyes

  • Turns or tilts head when looking at detail

  • Covers or closes an eye when looking at detail

  • Day vision is markedly different than night vision

  • Child does not appear to focus with central vision

  • Complains of tired eyes

  • Squints eyes

  • Sits excessively close to the television

  • Clumsy, has difficulty with walking and running

  • Avoids close work or becomes tired after doing close work.

Q: What is a functional vision assessment?

A: The three main areas of a functional vision assessment are: evaluating a child’s visual intake, visual tracking, and visual processing skills. For more detail on these test, click here.

Q: How Do I know if my child needs help with visual tracking?

A: Your child will often skip words or rows when reading, has difficulty copying from the board, makes transposition errors, and/or cannot keep proper rows and alignment of columns when solving math problems.

Q: What is vision perception/visual processing?

A: Vision perception is the ability to understand and process the information received by the eyes.  The occipital lobe is responsible primarily for our visual functions.  The visual association cortex within the occipital lobe is involved in higher order processing of visual information.  Weaknesses in vision perception can affect learning and processing information.  This, in turn, can affect academic areas such as reading, writing, drawing, and mathematics.

Developmental pediatricians, neuropsychologists, educational psychologists, teachers, educational therapists, and occupational therapists can often detect students with visual perception and visual tracking problems and refer to a developmental optometrist for further evaluation.

Q: What is vision therapy?

A:Vision therapy is a treatment program that addresses specific visual problems.

  • Amblyopia

  • Strabismus

  • Binocular Vision Dysfunction

  • Eye Movement Disorders

  • Accommodative Dysfunction

  • Some visual perceptual problems

A vision therapy program may consist of utilizing lenses, prisms, polarized filters, and other apparatus to maximize the neuromuscular innervations to utilize visual intake and visual processing.  Vision therapy encourages the development of the visual system by providing an experiential setting that forces one to use that specific visual pathway.

Q: Who performs Vision Therapy?

A: Originally, an ophthalmologist, Dr. Bates, developed eye exercises to improve eye focusing and eye muscle coordination.  Today, developmental optometrists perform vision therapy to a greater degree than ophthalmologists.  

Q: What does Vision therapy NOT treat?

A:

  • Learning disabilities

  • Dyslexia

  • Autism

  • Attention Deficit Disorder or ADHD

However, some children and adults with the above diagnoses also have vision problems in conjunction with their disability.  Thus, they may perform better after receiving vision therapy as this is one less obstacle in their overall development and learning.

Q: How long does vision therapy take?

A: Dr. Nguyen provides an individualized vision therapy program for each child and therefore the length of treatment is typically shorter; on average 10-20 (one hour) sessions).

Q: Do you accept insurance?

A: Dr. Nguyen is a provider of Vision Service Plan (VSP) which covers a portion of her evaluation.

Q: What makes you different from other optometrists?

A: Dr. Nguyen is a developmental optometrist specializing in pediatric eye care and provides functional vision assessments to determine whether there are vision or visual processing problems that is impacting a child’s development and learning. Check developmental milestones here. 

Q: Do you also examine adults?

A: Yes, Dr. Nguyen’s practice is a family practice and she welcomes adults too!

Q: How do I make an appointment?

A: Please call (310) 449-0066 for an appointment