About Owen Leigh Optometry
Introducing the clinic and our services
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Insight to Eyesight
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The brain uses the eyes to gather information about our surroundings. The brain cannot process all our view so it must first decide what to look for. The eyes-brain system then has to select that information, usually by shifting eye position and often by shifting focus. How the eyes-brain go through this process is the real test of visual efficiency.
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Here at Owen Leigh Optometry, we specialise in helping patients of all ages to develop flexibility in their vision to meet all their needs and interests. We start this by observing and measuring your eye-brain system with a wide range of visual challenges.
Eye health and eyesight are important, but this must not be the end point of developing good vision. We want to take you much further than that, to explore ways that you can see more, feel more, move better, plan better and understand quicker.
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We use 'visual efficiency glasses', vision exercises (vision therapy) and 'training/learning lenses' to help you develop your own vision. We add visual hygiene, consider coloured lenses and refer to other disciplines if that will help you meet your goals.
“What we see is dependant upon what we are looking for and what we managed to see last time.”
Dyslexia and Reading Difficulties
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How we help reading and writing difficulties:
Dyslexia is a term used to describe a range of specific learning difficulties. Those with dyslexia are frequently frustrated by their incapacity to visualise symbols, numbers or words and to be confused with tasks where accurate sequencing is important. Research continues to show a complex relationship between vision development and dyslexia. It is so complex that most ophthalmologists and optometrists fail to provide the services that can often make a real difference to the individual with reading and writing difficulties.
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"Average vision is not good enough for the child with reading difficulties!"
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At this clinic we continue to develop methods that help more and more of those with dyslexia enhance and use their vision to overcome their reading or learning difficulty. This often involves daily home practice, so we strongly prefer that both parents attend the initial assessment. (COVID precautions will be taken).​
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Key areas for assessment and treatment are:
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Convergence - using the two eyes together for sustained periods.
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Accommodation - focusing on print without fatigue or irritation.
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Tracking - moving the eyes efficiently to pick out key parts of text.
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Visualisation - seeing clearly in the head, anticipating and planning.
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Directional Awareness - right/left and symbol/word reversals can be totally overcome with vision therapy.
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This clinic:
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Agrees that most students with Dyslexia do not have eye movement or binocular deficiencies causing their reading difficulties. But 5 to 10% do!
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-Provides Training Glasses and Vision Therapy to help any student learn to focus visual attention. Visual attention must become flexible. Its profile should change for each task we carry out. This needs learning through positive (successful) experience.
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We use movement activities to enhance each student's attention skills. Some of these movement activities can also enhance the combining of language and vision which is crucial in overcoming dyslexia.
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Helps students who have learnt to focus their visual attention to begin to share attention, which is crucial for learning e.g. when writing, working memory is used to hold the sentence while monitoring sequence, spelling, neatness and layout. This supports memory and learning becomes easier.
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prescribes Treatment Glasses both tinted and non-tinted to support and develop visual attention and reduce fatigue. They act as if they 'jump start' visual information. They particularly help side vision. More is seen at once to allow greater awareness, comprehension and insight. Please do not get the glasses modified elsewhere until the treatment is completed.
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Measures the student's progress through detailed analysis of binocular, focus, scanning, and other visual processing tasks (appropriate to age and skill level).
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Follows international standards in optometric vision care.
Treatment options include:
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Vision Therapy to improve brain integration, attention and awareness. We usually see improvements in just three months of therapy. Most clients choose to continue for eight to eighteen months.
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http://www.visiontherapystories.com
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Study/Training Glasses. These are relatively low powered optics that produce extraordinary changes.
Advice to teachers and students on studying methods and classroom teaching. A detailed report will be prepared.
To find another Behavioural Optometrist in the UK and Ireland:
Optometrists Abroad:
Dyspraxia
How we develop spacial understanding.
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Dyspraxia is the expression used to describe difficulties that are occurring in both spatial vision and coordination.
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Spatial vision is knowing where every object is in our surroundings (both on the page and as we move). Spatial vision must include knowledge of what has previously been seen, and is now behind us! This is not memory since it requires no conscious thought - only awareness. Difficulties will show up with many of the following:
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-fatigue and irritation in busy areas such as playgrounds and shopping.
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difficulty with team sports, ball games, and with driving.
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-poor layout of writing, loss of place on the board, guessing in maths.
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-organisation problems and time awareness.
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Coordination is being able to control the best muscles to efficiently move through our environment and manipulate objects around us. Weakness here can cause frustration, fatigue and avoidance of
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pencil skills
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ball games
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running, jumping
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use of ruler and compass
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playing with friends.
And occasionally with eating and with speech.
Sometimes the coordination weakness is only apparent in writing.
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Dyspraxia frequently causes a child to ask many questions. They might need to find out about their world by asking rather than playing and observing. and the brightest children will develop very advanced verbal skills. There is often a genetic link and this can help earlier recognition and effective therapy to be prescribed.
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Vision Therapy will help develop skills in both these areas. Detailed assessment is important to ascertain what stage of vision development the therapy should initially be directed towards. Having both parents attending the assessment really does help us help your child.
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Visual Performance Testing in Dyspraxia
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Movement tests are crucial with this population.
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Spatial change lenses are sometimes helpful.
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A range of Perceptual Tests appropriate to the age of the patient.
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Large consulting and therapy rooms are valuable.
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We work with a number of Occupational Therapists to provide the best mixture of Sensory Integration and Visual Therapy to support each persons development (vision therapy is also helpful for adults).
Brain Injury.
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Owen Leigh has been guiding children and adults with brain injury for over 30 yrs. Our role is to re-engage vision development to help rehab and to support physiotherapists and speech and language therapists in their endeavours to build a new systems that will reduce confusion and fatigue and enhance quality of life at any age.
CALL US
Tel:
01730710174
EMAIL US
OPENING HOURS
Mon - Fri: 8:30am - 5:30pm