‫בס"ד‬
Dear friends and colleagues,
27.09.11
Thank you to all of you who allow me to apply my knowledge to help your clients. I
am grateful to get up each morning knowing I have a full day ahead of me, equipped
with enough knowledge to be ready to help others in such a meaningful way.
A Story
Chaim was now turning 16. For years he had been an indoor type of person and
enjoyed reading and stamp collecting in his spare time. But now Chaim was sixteen,
he suddenly felt the urge to do something more physically challenging. Whether it
was his growing towards manhood, or just because he’d had quite enough of sitting in
his house for so many hours, we shall never know, but going into the big outdoors is
where Chaim was headed. It was something he’d dreamt of for months. Not too far
from he lived was a steep rock face. Like a gray sheet, it reached high up towards the
heavens. Chaim often walked past it admiring how others managed to climb this
almost vertical rock face, so graceful in their movement. After some enquiries, and
making a reservation with a qualified rock-climbing instructor, Chaim arrived at the
base of the mountain for his first rock-climbing lesson.
Before starting to climb, Chaim’s instructor, Yaakov, asked him to do some push-ups
and sit –ups. He then asked Chaim to take his own hand and squeeze it as hard as he
could. Chaim looked at his instructor with a puzzled look on his face.” I came for rock
climbing lessons. Why are you asking me to do these exercises?” Yaakov didn’t
answer him, but instead insisted that Yaakov follow the instructions and carry out the
physical tests. Chaim grimaced as he heaved his body up and down on his arms doing
push-ups. He struggled to raise his head off the ground during his sit-ups. As for his
handshake, his instructor felt like he was holding a wet fish when he shook Yaakov’s
hand.
The instructor put his arm on Chaim’s shoulder and spoke to him sincerely. “Chaim, I
am a climbing instructor. I get out of bed in the morning to help people reach their
potential in climbing. I take my work very seriously. I want to be able to teach you
everything I can to help you be the best climber that you can be. But I need you to be
physically ready for climbing, BEFORE I teach you about climbing. Chaim was
beginning to understand. Yaakov continued,” Of course there are some climbing
instructors who ignore the physical limitations of the climber and teach him anyway.
But will that student get the most out of his climbing lessons? Or will they be
spending half the energy in compensating for their physical limitations?”
Chaim absorbed the message. His initial bad feeling disappeared. He knew deep down
that Yaakov was right, and that Yaakov really had Chaim’s best interests at heart.
You’re a real professional!
Clients may come seeking your expertise with underlying visual issues that will limit
your ability to help them as much as you would like to be able to. They will
appreciate it if you say, ”I’d love to be able to help your child read, write, cut etc. I
am sure that I can help your child a lot, even now. But if you want me to help them in
the best way, it really makes sense to take care of the visual issues first, and then
come back to me. That’s because your child is going to be using their eyes a lot when
they work with me, so I want to work with them once I know that vision is no longer
limiting their ability to reach their potential.” I hope the above story is something that
will make it easier to explain this to your clients.
Important Research Concludes: There is NO age limit to attain
vision changes through Optometric Vision Therapy!
At Last! A scientific paper that acknowledges the experiences of vision therapy
patients! This paper explains how optometric vision therapy (perceptual learning)
enabled adults who are stereoblind, to acquire stereovision!
There is no need to listen to anyone who says that after age 8 or 11, it is too late for
changes to be made!!
Recovery of stereopsis through perceptual learning in human adults with abnormal
binocular vision . Dennis M. Levi & Jian Ding.
Author Affiliations
1.
2.
aSchool
of Optometry and
Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute, University of California, Berkeley, CA
94720
bThe
Abstract
Stereopsis, the perception of depth based on the disparity of the images projected to the
retinas of the two eyes, is an important process in our three-dimensional world; however, 3–
5% of the population is stereoblind or has seriously impaired stereovision. Here we provide
evidence for the recovery of stereopsis through perceptual learning, the repetitive practice of a
demanding visual task, in human adults long deprived of normal binocular vision. We used a
training paradigm that combines monocular cues that were correlated perfectly with the
disparity cues. Following perceptual learning (thousands of trials) with stereoscopic gratings,
five adults who initially were stereoblind or stereoanomalous showed substantial recovery of
stereopsis, both on psychophysical tests with stimuli that contained no monocular cues and
on clinical testing. They reported that depth “popped out” in daily life, and enjoyed 3D movies
for the first time. After training, stereo tests with dynamic random-dot stereograms and
band-pass noise revealed the properties of the recovered stereopsis: It has reduced resolution
and precision, although it is based on perceiving depth by detecting binocular disparity. We
conclude that some human adults deprived of normal binocular vision can recover stereopsis
at least partially.
This research acknowledges the experiences of many adults who have been helped in
the offices of Developmental optometrists all over the world. If you know adults who
are struggling to reach their potential in reading, or who can’t read on buses or who
just feel that something is not right with their vision, you can help them by telling
them about LedermanVision.
Symptoms or Screening: What’s better for making a referral ?
You’re sitting there with a 10 year old, trying to decide whether or not you should
make a referral for an evaluation with a developmental optometrist. It’s not easy. You
might know some simple screening tests. You may have even learned them at a
seminar from me. So you carry out some of the screening tests and the child passes
them all. But you see that he is skipping letters when he is reading. So what’s more
important? To rely on the screening test or on the child’s signs and symptoms?
It is far more important to go with the signs and symptoms. The demand of the
screening tests is still far below the visual demands of reading fluently with
comprehension. If a child fails simple tests of convergence, or tracking, then you
know he is struggling when reading. However, if he passes those simple screening
procedures, this does not mean that his visual abilities match the visual demands of
reading. It can take me a whole hour to establish that in my exam!
So for the child’s sake, please, please read the list of symptoms in the brochure
attached, and make yourself familiar with them.Ask the child how he feels when he
reads.Does he want to close one eye? Does he feel the words moving on as page? It is
safe to rely on the signs and symptoms alone in order to refer a child. You may
find your screening procedures just confuse things for you, and the child might loose
out on what he really needs.
LedermanVision in Bnei Brak: Already Helping People there too!!
LedermanVision in Bnei Brak has thank G-d been running to capacity! In addition to
the wonderful caring personality, knowledge and expertise of Avi Portnoy, the
patients are really loving the very latest therapeutic tool, the Sanet Vision Integrator.
It’s the only one in Israel. We will have one up and running in Jerusalem soon. Check
it out for yourself at http://www.svivision.com/videos.php .
With your continued referrals and our dedication to excellence in our respective
fields, we continue to change lives, together.
With blessings for a Happy and healthy New Year.
!‫כתיבה וחתימה טובה‬
Robert Lederman MCOptom FCOVD
Board Certified Fellow, College of Optometrists in Vision Development
PS :Mazal Tov to my colleague Dr. Tzipi Mak on the publication of her new book
‫כל אחד הוא ילד מיוחד‬
I highly recommend it. Copies can be purchased from Tzipi at 0522601070 or
tzipi.mack@gmail.com