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The Best Kept Secret in Vision and Learning
Why You Were Diagnosed With ADHD or Dyslexia
Why You Were Told “Nothing’s Wrong”
Why Have You Never Heard of This
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Why Did Nobody Check
If you’ve been told “your eyes are fine,” diagnosed with ADHD or dyslexia, or dismissed as anxious or unmotivated, you are not crazy. Many people with real functional vision limitations still see 20/20 on a chart. The problem is that the chart measures clarity, not how efficiently the visual system works under real-life demand.
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Functional vision is about performance. Can your eyes team smoothly for long periods of reading or screens? Can you track accurately without losing your place? Can you sustain focus without fatigue, headaches, motion sensitivity, or brain fog? When those skills are weak, the brain often works overtime to compensate. Over time, that compensation can look exactly like attention issues, reading struggles, or learning differences.
Why this gets missed so often
Most routine eye exams and school screenings are designed to check eye health and prescription needs. They are not built to measure the “how” of vision during sustained work.
Time and insurance models reward quick clarity checks, not deep performance testing.
Symptoms overlap. A child who avoids reading, fidgets, forgets instructions, or struggles with comprehension may be flagged for ADHD or dyslexia first.
Many professionals simply were not trained to test binocular vision control, tracking quality, and visual stamina at a level that predicts real-life performance.
Why it can look like ADHD or dyslexia
When the visual system is inefficient, the brain spends energy just keeping things single, clear, and stable.
Attention becomes inconsistent because the task feels harder than it should.
Reading becomes slower because the eyes lose place, skip lines, re-read, or drift.
Comprehension drops because so much effort is spent on the mechanics of seeing.
Behavior changes because the nervous system is trying to avoid discomfort, not avoid learning.
Why you’ve never heard of this
Functional vision problems sit in the gap between “eye health is normal” and “school performance is struggling.”
There are far fewer specialty centers focused on functional vision than there are general eye clinics or tutoring programs.
Most families only learn about it after years of workarounds that never fully solve the problem.
My personal why
I had Convergence Insufficiency
I wish I had known this earlier. I lived the experience of working harder than I should have, compensating, pushing through, and not having the language for what was happening. That’s why this practice exists. My goal is to make sure fewer kids and adults struggle unnecessarily, and to be part of the change for the lives I can impact. This should not be the best kept secret in learning and performance.
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If something feels off, but you keep getting told you’re fine, the next step is not more guessing. It’s the right kind of testing.
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