Understanding vision's role in movement and coordination. A child who trips, bumps into things, gets car sick, walks on their toes or avoids ball games may be working with a visual system that isn't guiding the body well — even with 20/20 eyesight.
Visual-motor integration is the coordination between what the eyes see and how the body moves. Every time a child catches a ball, climbs a stair, copies from the board or forms a letter, the brain has to take in visual information and turn it into an accurate movement. When that connection is inefficient, the eyes can be perfectly healthy and still leave the body guessing — and the result is often labelled clumsiness, carelessness or a motor delay when vision is part of the picture.
Four ways poor visual-motor integration shows up in everyday life.
Poor visual-motor integration can lead to depth perception issues, making it harder for a child to judge distances accurately. This can result in clumsiness, frequent tripping, or bumping into objects, as their brain struggles to coordinate what their eyes see with how their body moves. These challenges can also affect everyday tasks like catching a ball, climbing stairs, or even navigating a crowded room.
Poor visual-motor integration can contribute to motion sickness in children. When the brain has trouble processing and coordinating visual information with body movement, it can lead to a mismatch in signals, causing dizziness or nausea during activities like car rides or swinging. This disconnect between what the eyes see and how the body moves often triggers motion sickness.
Poor visual-motor integration can contribute to toe walking in children, as the brain struggles to coordinate visual information with body movement, affecting balance and spatial awareness. Toe walking is often a way for children to compensate for these challenges. Other common causes of toe walking include muscle tightness, sensory processing issues, or developmental delays.
Poor visual-motor integration can affect a child’s spatial awareness, making it harder to understand where objects are in relation to their body. This can lead to challenges with tasks like navigating obstacles, playing sports, and recognizing letter orientation. Difficulty with visual-motor skills may cause frequent letter reversals, like confusing “b” and “d,” as the brain struggles to interpret and coordinate letter positions. It can also result in clumsiness and difficulties with everyday activities that require smooth coordination between vision and movement.
Many of these signs overlap with eye teaming problems such as lazy eye or an eye turn — which is why an evaluation looks at the whole visual system, not just coordination.
Tripping, car sickness, toe walking, avoiding ball games, letter reversals, a PT or OT referral — the history matters. The interactive symptom survey is a good way to organize it before your visit.
Beyond the eye chart, we measure how the eyes team, track and focus, depth perception, and how what the eyes see is coordinated with movement — visual-motor integration and visual-spatial skills. Where relevant, retained primitive reflexes are assessed as one piece of the whole picture. See what an evaluation involves.
Dr. Murray reviews the results with you and, when a vision problem is part of the picture, builds an individualized plan — which may include lenses or prism, in-office vision therapy, and coordination with your physical or occupational therapist.
Reviews from families who came in with questions about coordination, reading, focus and headaches — and found vision was part of the answer.
“I was blown away by Dr. Murray's knowledge and communication about vision processing disorder, something we had never heard of at the time. She made my son very comfortable during the evaluation and spent a lot of time with us reviewing her findings and next steps. All of the staff is wonderful and knowledgeable. Highly recommend if you have any concern that your child may need this type of care.”
“The initial evaluation and consultation were so informative! It helped us answer so many of the question marks in my daughter's life. I have NEVER had a physician spend so much time and energy answering questions and getting me everything I needed to help my daughter be successful at school. I will say it isn't "cheap" but nothing good ever is. Worth every penny!”
“Excellent service. Dr. Murray loves what she does. She is thorough and concise and takes her time to express and decipher all concerns. Thank you for shedding light on the un-noticed issues our kids suffer from.”
“Thanks to the team, our daughter's vision has improved significantly. We are so grateful for the efforts and dedication. We highly recommend Dr. Christina Murray and her team.”
“Dr. Murray and the entire staff are professional and friendly. The office is clean, organized, and inviting. The evaluation process was very thorough and quantitatively designed to provide good baseline diagnostics. My son was nervous to begin; however, his therapist has been great and now my son looks forward to sessions. After 18 sessions my son is graduating! His attention and focus have improved, as well as visual processing and cognitive learning skills.”
“The staff is patient and well trained. I've seen a huge change in my little guy right away!”
“This office looks so beautiful and welcoming. My daughter was nervous about her first session, but the staff was so sweet and made sure she was comfortable. I've definitely noticed a huge improvement in her grades after a few weeks.”
“Already changed our son in just a few short weeks. As parents who were desperate for answers, we were relieved when Dr. Murray realized our 5-year-old simply needed visual processing therapy. We are already told from his kindergarten teacher that he is participating more and more, and the welcomed side effects of his therapy are increased self-confidence, self-calm, and true ability to learn quickly!”
“If I could give them 10 stars I would. After starting therapy we have seen such great improvement. My son is doing so much better in school and reading has greatly improved. Dr. Murray and her team are amazing!”
“Dr. Murray and her staff are amazing! They really care about their patients and are very friendly and warm. They made my daughter feel very comfortable right from the start. Dr. Murray is extremely knowledgeable and the best at what she does!”
“Terrific experience in a clean, well-organized facility. All personnel wore smiles throughout my visit. Felt very safe. The doctor offered excellent service and explained every step of my eye exam along the way in terms I could understand. Check-in and check-out were both seamless with little waiting. Would highly recommend based on my first visit.”
“I wasn't sure about therapy at first but after a few sessions I noticed a huge difference in my daughter's academic performance. I highly recommend this place if you struggle with getting your eyes to work together and it impacts your school work or everyday life.”
“Before coming here I noticed my son had trouble in school when it came to focusing and some perceptual skills. After coming here all of those issues were a thing of the past! Now he's doing amazing in school!”
“My son was having troubles with reading and was getting headaches all the time. Dr. Murray and her staff helped us find what was going on. Through therapy we were able to ease his vision problems. My son went from struggling in school to being at the top of his class!”
“My daughter had surgery for her strabismus and it was recommended for her to go to a vision therapist to straighten her eyes. I truly believe it's been the best choice we could have made.”
Trips often, bumps into things, or seems awkward during sports or play? Why a vision problem can look like clumsiness.
Body schema, bilateral integration, ocular motor control and motor planning — the motor stage of development and how vision depends on it.
How visual-spatial reasoning develops, and the milestones that show a child is making sense of where things are.
The role of visual-spatial skills in letter formation, spacing and alignment — and why practice alone may not fix it.
How reflexes that should fade in infancy can keep interfering with eye function, posture and coordination.
Every post on how vision guides movement, handwriting and coordination.
If you're ready to find out whether vision is behind the clumsiness, car sickness or toe walking, schedule an evaluation at our Boynton Beach and Boca Raton offices — or meet the team first.