We are incredibly proud of Dr. Johnson who has recently obtain his long deserved Fellowship from the College of Optometrists in Vision Development (OD, FCOVD).   A Fellow has demonstrated advanced competency and is board certified in the areas of vision development, vision therapy and vision rehabilitation.   This was a long process during which Dr. Johnson underwent advanced testing and oral examinations. This distinction would not have been possible without the amazing team and patients at Virginia Vision Therapy Center! The post We are incredibly proud of Dr. Johnson! appear ..read more

We are celebrating Healthy Vision Month! These resources from the CDC explain the importance of maintaining healthy vision, but as we know at Virginia Vision Therapy Center, vision is much more than 20/20!   In addition to having a dilated eye exam each year, you should also consider whether you are seeing signs of vision problems affecting learning, such as homework battles, exhaustion after school, poor attention with deskwork and academic struggles, clumsiness, frequent headaches, and low self-esteem (“I’m stupid”). For some children who work hard to keep it together at school, they ma ..read more

Muscle Signals Build Perception Why does vision therapy work on body movement so much? Recent research from the University of Rochester vision specialists provides support for a concept that has been present in our field of functional optometry for over 50 years – muscle signals are an essential part of perceiving spatial relationships. While common knowledge says that perception is built as we process information through the optic nerve and the brain, this study shows that extremely small motor signals from the individual muscles of the eye play an essential role in mapping out spatial relat ..read more

  Alexandra Luevano needed glasses. Optometrist Gregory Johnson, a nondenominational Christian who works at Virginia Vision Therapy, was looking for ways he could volunteer. When Johnson learned that Luevano, his new patient, was the program director of Catholic Charities Mother of Mercy Free Medical Clinic, he realized his prayers had been answered. “God did the rest,” said Luevano. Less than a year after Johnson and Luevano met, the Mother of Mercy clinic in Woodbridge began offering in-house eye care for clinic patients.   Read full story: https://www.catholicherald.com/article/l ..read more

Head Injury With Loss Of Consciousness Tied To Higher Prevalence Of Disability Later In Life, Study Indicates Healio (5/26, Marabito) reported researchers found in a cross-sectional analysis that “history of a head injury with loss of consciousness led to a higher prevalence of disability later in life among individuals aged 40 years and older.” The findings were published in Neurology. EurekAlert (5/26) carried a piece from the American Academy of Neurology that quoted study author Andrea L.C. Schneider, MD, PhD, of the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine in Philadelphia ..read more

How Children Read Differently From Books vs. Screens Scrolling may work for social media, but experts say that for school assignments, kids learn better if they slow down their reading. By Perri Klass, M.D. March 16, 2021 In this pandemic year, parents have been watching — often anxiously — their children’s increasing reliance on screens for every aspect of their education. It can feel as if there’s no turning back to the time when learning involved hitting the actual books. But the format children read in can make a difference in terms of how they absorb information. Naomi Baron, who is prof ..read more

If VT Worked, Don’t You Think We’d Do It? BY LEONARD J. PRESS, O.D., FAAO, FCOVD JANUARY 7, 2016   There has been a steady attrition in opposition to optometric vision therapy. Perhaps it isbecause our field continually advances itself through the application of burgeoning knowledgeabout the interactions of the eyes and the rest of the brain and body. Or because our network ofcollaborators in research and clinical practice casts an ever-widening net. Possibly it’s becausepatients and parents who benefit from optometric vision therapy are increasingly pleased aboutthe outcomes. Or could i ..read more

Interview with Debbie Walhof, M.D. on Vision & Learning   In 2013, along with the pediatrician Dr. Debra Walhof, I co-authored an article titled: Could Vision Issues Be Contributing to Your Child’s Difficulty With Learning?  At the time Dr. Walhof was a parent advocate with the National Center for Learning Disabilities or NCLD.  But if you search for that paper now, all you’ll come up with is:   However, I was pleased to discover that the article is still accessible as a PDF through the website WellChildVision.org.  But in case that site succumbs to the i ..read more

To teach parents about the importance of managing myopia in children, the Global Myopia Awareness Coalition is turning to an influential group: parenting and gaming influencers. The new initiative, dubbed #GameOverMyopia, enlists parenting and gaming influencers to spread awareness about myopia through gaming, both on digital screens and recreated in real life (IRL). Four well-known parenting influencers will be bringing their kids’ favorite games to life by recreating them in their house or backyard and encouraging parents to be more aware about their kid’s screen usage and how it relates to ..read more

Michael Neustifter, Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation, and a Path to Major League Baseball Adapted from Sports Illustrated, originally titled “The Lost-and-Found Story of Michael Neustifter “ by Tom Verducci and published April 30, 2020 Sometime this summer Major League Baseball will conduct an ad hoc version of its amateur draft. Because of the coronavirus pandemic, which halted all baseball since mid-March, it may be shortened from its usual 40 rounds to between five and 10 rounds. Players under consideration by major league teams include the usual assortment of comeback stories, such as pitch ..read more