Overview

Dr. Smith became interested in helping children with learning difficulties while still in optometry school. For over three decades he has worked extensively with many children who are frustrated with their learning. Many of these children are bright and eager to learn, yet unable to process the information presented to them at school and fall more and more behind each school year. As school years pass they become less interested in school and may develop behavior problems.

In addition to children with learning difficulties we also work with adults who are unproductive or uncomfortable at work, with people with "crossed eyes" (strabismus), "lazy eye" (amblyopia, one eye not seeing as clearly as the other), people with brain injuries (trauma, strokes, birth defects etc.) and sports enhancement.

We have traditionally worked primarily with home vision therapy, meaning the parents and child (or the adult patient) complete therapy procedures at home (5 days a week). They return to our office once a month for a progress report and to update the therapy procedures. Recently we have expanded our vision therapy services to include office-based vision therapy.

Although home vision therapy has been a convenient option for our many patients who drive many miles to see us, office vision therapy offers several advantages:

*One-on-one time with our therapist
*Instruments to assist therapy that are not available for home use.
*Less time with home therapy (often 2 days a week)
*Faster progress
*Assurance that techniques are completed correctly
*Compliance can be monitored
*Most important: a better success!

InVision Eye Care has recently added another optometrist who works extensively with vision therapy. Tara Kempfer, O.D. is taking new patients and uses many of the same philosophies and techniques that Dr. Smith uses, but also brings in some new procedures. Dr. Kempfer recently spent a three month clinical rotation with a large vision therapy practice in Denver, CO where she worked with many children with several types of vision problems. She is integrating the programs and techniques from the Denver educational experience into our vision therapy program.