Trying to learn to read in first grade, Dylan Dresen of Madison tilted his head, covered up one eye — and struggled. He worked with reading specialists, saw an optometrist and visited an ophthalmologist.

“He had several good reading teachers and tutors,” said his mother, Lori Dresen. “We knew he was smart but it was just not working.”

Two years later, Dylan’s mom decided to try vision therapy — sometimes referred to as “physical therapy for the eyes” — even though the effectiveness of it is disputed by some in the medical community. She and her son began a weekly commute to Brookfield or Watertown for 45-minute sessions to master exercises in focusing and eye-tracking designed to help the eyes and the brain work better together. Every night, Dylan would repeat the exercises at home.

Now, more than a year since he completed nine months of vision therapy, Dylan, 10, “is a much happier kid, and more confident,” his mother said. “He can see things — they’re not blurry. He doesn’t have to tilt his head. He doesn’t get headaches.” He even got rid of his glasses.

“I think it’s really important for people to know that there’s options for kids struggling to read,” she said. “He’s doing so much better now since the vision therapy. I wish we had known about it when he was in kindergarten or first grade.”

The Madison area is home to two new clinics specializing in vision therapy: the Brookfield-based Vision Therapy Center, which opened a Madison office in April, and New Horizons Vision Therapy in Waunakee. Both are run by licensed optometrists specialized in developmental optometry, which differentiates between “sight” — the ability to see clearly — and “vision” — the ability of both eyes to work together, sending information to the brain so it can be organized and given meaning.

“There’s only about eight (optometrists) in the state who specialize in vision therapy,” said Valerie Frazer of New Horizons, who sees patients ranging in age from six months to 80.

Older vision therapy patients tend to be victims of stroke or traumatic brain injury, such as from a motorcycle crash, or have conditions like strabismus, or crossed eyes.

But the majority of patients “are elementary school-aged kids who are having trouble with reading and learning,” Frazer said. “They may lose their place a lot, have trouble with the words running together. Their two eyes might not be working together well as a team. That can cause double-vision, poor attention to reading and schoolwork,” and even sometimes behavioral problems.

The Vision Therapy Center’s Kellye Knueppel, who formerly had patients drive from the Madison area to her Milwaukee-area office, notes that some parents come with concerns that their child may have dyslexia. Dyslexia is a profound reading disorder best addressed by a reading expert, she said. But in some cases, eye-teaming or another function is the root of the problem.

“And once the visual system is working,” Knueppel said, “then all those things that people thought were dyslexia can go away.”

Preston Baerenwald of Sun Prairie, now 12, came to Knueppel for vision therapy in 2006. He was reversing letters when he read, and had trouble with tasks such as catching a ball. After nine months of treatments for binocular vision dysfunction, “Now it’s easier to view in on things,” Preston said.

“The day Preston came in and said, ‘I like reading’ was just amazing,” Knueppel added.

While parents are eager to share success stories, some in the medical community are skeptical — particularly ophthalmologists, medical doctors who specialize in the anatomy, function and diseases of the eye.

“I have not been impressed with the option of vision therapy as a treatment for any type of problem,” said Dr. Mansoor Movaghar, a pediatric ophthalmologist for Davis Duehr Dean in Madison. The medical literature lacks good quality, controlled studies showing whether vision therapy actually works, he said, and parents have to pay out of pocket for treatments that might not be covered by insurance.

“It’s costly, and there’s no real demonstrable benefit,” Movaghar said. “If this was truly a good therapy, why wouldn’t physicians be providing this service?”

But Dr. Kyle Van Dyke, a family practice physician at the Wisconsin Integrative Hyperbaric Center in Fitchburg who works with patients with autism, regularly refers patients for vision therapy and “clinically, I’ve seen very nice results from it,” he said. “It may not work for everybody but I’ve definitely seen some patients where it’s made a very big clinical difference.”

Van Dyke discovered vision therapy while living on the East Coast and it greatly helped his son, who has autism, with depth perception and even his speech, Van Dyke said. A niece who had “horrendous handwriting issues” tried vision therapy and “within six months her handwriting had completely normalized,” he said. “She was out of special-ed classes and back into a normal classroom.”

Madison public schools give exams for distance vision in pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, third, fifth and eighth grades, and also screen children when there is a concern. Conventional optometrists also screen for distance vision — but that is a different approach than developmental optometry, Knueppel said.

“If you think of the eyes, they’re really just an extension of the brain,” Frazer said. With vision therapy, “we’re learning how to coordinate eye muscles, but we’re also training the brain to see things correctly.

“The research is just catching up to us,” she said. “They used to think you couldn’t change the brain, that it is what it is. Now we’re learning that that isn’t true.” 
 
Vision therapy clinics

New Horizons Vision Therapy Center

Where: 1004 Quinn Dr., Waunakee

Phone: 849-4040

Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and by appointment.

Web site: www.optometrists.org/frazer/

Upcoming: “Vision Beyond 20/20,” a continuing education session for educators and occupational, physical and speech therapists, Oct. 21. Call 849-4040.

The Vision Therapy Center, Inc.

Where: 4781 W. Hayes Rd., Madison. Other locations in Brookfield and Watertown.

Phone: 262-784-9201

Hours: Mondays and Thursdays 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m.

Web site: www.thevisiontherapycenter.com/

Upcoming: “Vision and Learning: How Vision Therapy Can Help Children Struggling in School” presentation from 7-8:30 p.m. July 16 at McFarland High School, 5101 Farwell St., McFarland.