Why Did a Psychologist or Psychiatrist Refer Your Child?
Attention, frustration and avoidance around schoolwork can have a visual problem sitting underneath them. Your provider wants that ruled in or out before the picture is complete. Here are the three reasons mental health providers across South Florida send families to us.
Watch: short videos
Is it ADHD or vision?
Dyslexia and vision: check both
Why Vision Comes Up in a Behavioral Evaluation
Anxiety, anger, frustration, inattention and poor behavior are common reasons children are referred for a psychological evaluation. Those same behaviors can have an undiagnosed visual problem sitting underneath them — a child who cannot comfortably hold a single, clear image of the page in front of them will often look inattentive, avoidant or oppositional long before anyone looks at how their eyes are working.
That is why we recommend a full developmental eye exam as part of the work-up, before a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD or another behavioral or mood disorder is settled on. This is not an either/or: many children have both, and a visual problem that is found and treated simply stops adding to the load. What an evaluation gives everyone is one more piece of information, measured rather than assumed.
A referral here does not replace the care your child is already receiving. We are always looking for like-minded mental health providers to help guide our patients through the changes vision therapy brings to their lives, and we work alongside them the whole way. Are you the referring provider? See our professional resources or send us a referral.
What They May Have Seen
Most referrals from psychologists and psychiatrists fall into one of these three groups. Choose the one that sounds like your child.
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Attention
Difficulties With Attention
Focus that fades on a page but not on a screen or a soccer field. When the eyes cannot hold a comfortable, single, clear image of near work, the effort it takes to keep looking is often what runs out first — and from the outside that looks like inattention.
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BVD
Eye Teaming, Eye Focusing, or Eye Tracking Deficits
Binocular vision dysfunction: the eyes are healthy and the eye chart is fine, but they do not aim, focus or move together comfortably. Words blur, double or swim after a few minutes of reading, and headaches, nausea or anxiety in busy places can follow.
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Perception
Visual Processing Deficits
The eyes deliver the picture, but the brain is slow to make sense of it — letter reversals, a lost place on the page, weak comprehension and messy written output despite plenty of effort and plenty of ability.
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Not sure which one fits? Start with the symptom survey, read about vision, ADD and ADHD, or browse every problem we work with — the evaluation sorts it out either way.
From Referral to Report
Schedule a developmental vision evaluation
Bring any testing, school reports or notes your psychologist or psychiatrist gave you. Tell us who referred you when you book so we can send the results back to the right office.
We test what a school screening does not
A developmental evaluation measures how the two eyes work together — eye teaming, eye focusing, eye tracking, depth perception and visual processing — beyond eye health and the 20/20 line. See what an evaluation looks at.
Your referring provider gets a full report
We send a full report on everything we tested, so the findings sit alongside the psychological or educational testing rather than duplicating it — and so everyone is working from the same information.
If therapy is indicated, we co-manage
During a vision therapy program we send the referring provider periodic updates on your child’s progress, and release your child back to their care once the program is complete.
Worth Reading First
- Vision problems vs. ADHD: how to tell when vision may be part of the picture Where the two overlap, and the questions that help separate them.
- Vision therapy and executive function Why planning, organization and self-regulation lean on the visual system.
- Can a child have 20/20 vision and still struggle with reading? Why a passed screening and a struggling reader are not a contradiction.
- Comprehensive eye exam vs. developmental eye exam What each one measures, and which one this referral is asking for.
- What is vision therapy? How a program works, week to week, if the evaluation shows it is indicated.
Bring the Referral In
The next step is the evaluation: we measure exactly which visual skills are working and which are not, then send your referring provider the results either way. Offices in Coconut Creek, Boynton Beach, Boca Raton and West Palm Beach.