BEHAVIOURAL OPTOMETRY

What to Expect

What to bring:

Glasses if already wearing them.
Reports from the school or any other professional(s) you have seen such as an educational psychologist, occupational therapist, speech therapist or other optometrist. In particular, the results of standardised testing like the WISC are very helpful.
Examples of handwriting or other work that is an issue.

Plan on arriving 10 minutes before the appointment to allow time for filling out information, settling down and going to the toilet. (Many children have travelled a long way and/or may be a little nervous). To get the most value from your time with the optometrist, please:

Turn off your mobile phone during the assessment.
Have other children minded outside of the test room.

What will happen
A behavioural optometrist will want you to:

Sit in a big comfortable chair
Read some letters - if you don't know your letters that's OK; just tell them and they will use pictures instead.
Try some puzzles
Draw some shapes or copy some pictures
Look through some interesting machines and tell them when letters or pictures are clear or blurry and when you see one thing or two.
Look at a light while they look into your eyes so that they can see how healthy they are.

If you don 't know an answer or find some things a bit tricky that's OK - just say so. As long as you have a try, the optometrist will be happy.

* Very occasionally the optometrist will need to put drops in the eyes to get a better look. The drops sting a little for about 15-20 seconds. This is the only part of the examination that may be uncomfortable and is not needed for most patients.

Glasses
The optometrist may recommend glasses. Wally (as in Where's ) and Harry Potter are childhood heroes that wear glasses. The optometrist or an assistant will make sure that the glasses are fitting comfortably around the ears and on the nose.

Visual therapy
A behavioural optometrist may recommend vision therapy to improve visual efficiency & comfort, and to improve visual information processing skills and speed.

Optometrists have interesting machines and equipment to look through. If children are prepared for an ‘adventure', they will enjoy looking through them.

One of the eye tests involves reading single letters. For people who aren't confident with their letters the optometrist will use other targets such as simply designed pictures.