Locations: Los Angeles | Torrance | Newport Beach | San Juan Capistrano
Call or Text: 424-407-3303 | Fax: 424-407-3309
What We Treat
Clinically Proven Treatment, Countless Applications​
At Performance Vision Therapy, we not only understand how the visual processing system works, we know that its complexity and interaction with various other senses can lead to various problems and symptoms.
Through performing a Developmental Vision Exam or a Vision Rehabilitation Exam we are able to identify the true visual processing deficiency that is causing our patient's symptoms. Vision therapy isn't a cookie-cutter treatment. The principles can be applied to not only treating various congenital conditions but also to problems acquired from brain injuries. The therapy can then also be tailored to improve the visual processing performance of athletes and has been utilized by professional teams in the MLB, NFL, NHL, and others for decades.
Learning-RelatedÂ
Vision Disorders
Seeing 20/20 is only one of the 17 visual skills needed to function in our everyday environments.
A problem with just one visual skill can lead to frustration and struggling at work or school.
More than 20/20
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Children often can not describe and explain their symptoms to their parents and teachers. Such problems can include the following:
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occasional blur when looking at the board or at near
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double vision
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loss of place when reading
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not remembering what they read
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difficulty finding information on the board
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loss of concentration on material
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headaches
Incredibly bright children often fall multiple reading levels behind, struggle in countless subjects, and have a distain for their school work when plagued by a vision disorder.
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Vision therapy treats and strengthens the long list visual skills beyond just the skill of seeing 20/20 so students of all ages and adults can thrive as their visual processing performs at its peak.
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Learn more about the Signs, Symptoms, and Treatments for Learning-Related Visual Problems by clicking below.
Sports Vision Training
"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee, his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see."
- Muhammad Ali
"The Greatest" knew long before many professional sports clubs did that objects missed by the eyes and the visual system are then missed by the body. Profession sports clubs have caught on and the most elite athletes contribute sports vision training to aiding in their success.
"his hands can't hit what his eyes can't see"​
Whether it is hitting a fastball, catching a football, flawlessly judging your distance to the basketball hoop, stopping a speeding puck from entering the goal, or using your peripheral awareness to know where all of your teammates and opponents are on a field, your athletic skill has been fine-tuned based on what your eyes have taken in over the years and provided feedback for all of your muscle memory development.
From professional racer drivers to tennis players to baseball and soccer players, there isn't a single sport that hasn't been able to better empower players through sports vision training.
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Nowadays, professional teams are even using sports vision equipment to screen players entering the draft and using vision data to judge the players. At Performance Vision Therapy, we've invested heavily in the best vision equipment used by professional teams so our athletes can get the edge on their competition.
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Identify Your Weaknesses
At Performance Vision Therapy, we have equipment that not only measures your visual processing skills but also compares it to tens of thousands of your peers.
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We can show parents how their children compare nationally to other children their age, find their weaknesses, and focus on what needs improvement instead of wasting time with repetition on already achieved skills.
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High school and college athletes can see where they stand compared to others and work on their weak skills.
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We've invested in the same technology used by the MLB to screen players entering the draft, as well as countless other professional sports players and clubs from the NFL, NBA, NHL, and more.
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We offer one-on-one customized training for athletes at every level and small group classes for adults and youth athletes.
**COVID Adjustment: small group classes have been suspended as we work to provide our clients with the safest and most comfortable training experience.
What to Try Before Surgery​
World renowned Dr. Robert Sanet who has treated and trained children to Olympic athletes said it best when he said, "Cutting eye muscles to cure a vision problem is like cutting the tongue to cure a speech problem." While most surgeons will be honest that the goal of surgery is merely cosmetic, Vision Therapy works to not only align the eyes for better cosmetics but also improve the brain's processing and control of the eyes so they work better together and see better.
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The eyes must work well together as a TEAM. Eye turns and "lazy eyes" are typically NOT caused by an eye muscle problem but instead by a brain problem that results in the two eyes not working well together as a team. That's why our treatment is directed at the actual cause of the problem and not just the cosmetics.
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At Performance Vision Therapy, we use treatment that has excelled beyond the old school of thought that "patching" is the only treatment and we target the visual processing skills of the brain. You can think of it as upgrading and fine-tuning the software in a computer that coordinates two cameras (our eyes) and then also processes all the information they collect.
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We utilize technology and treatment plans from the most reliable research and up to date studies.
With no surgery and no medication, our non-invasive approach through the use of vision therapy is more effective as well.​
ADHD, Autism, & Vision
Because of the similarities in symptoms between many vision disorders and disorders such as ADD and ADHD, various problems can arise in diagnosis and treatment.
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vision disorder symptoms can be masked and missed
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incorrect diagnosis of ADHD, ADD and other cognitive disorders have been made when it was actually a vision disorder requiring no medication for treatment
Similarities in Symptoms Often Lead to the Wrong Diagnosis
Similarities in vision disorder symptoms and cognitive disorder symptoms can lead to a multitude of problems when it comes to proper diagnosis and treatment of patients.
One concern is that the vision disorder can often be missed completely as the symptoms of ADHD, Autism, and other disorders can mask the vision problems. Imagine if a patient had a limp because of a bad knee. One might not think to consider that the patient also has a bad ankle as the knee is the primary focus. While we can not cure ADHD, Autism, and other cognitive disorders, we can treat underlying vision disorders that are also ailing patients and adding to their frustrations and difficulties.
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Autistic patients specifically often have hypersensitive vision and their coping mechanisms can mask various vision disorders. As they become visually defensive to cope with their sensory overload. They may avoid eye contact, make quick and momentary looks to the side or perform constant side viewing, stare at lights or spinning objects, and have a lack of central focusing. This instability in their visual coordination can then lead to instability in their physical responses to their world as they aren't able to consistently and clearly view it and judge what is going on around them. Treatment of these vision concerns can alleviate some of these symptoms and bring ease to many of their daily tasks.
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Another major concern is that it is not uncommon for vision disorders to be misdiagnosed as ADD, ADHD, or other cognitive disorders. There are numerous cases of patients simply having a vision disorder that is completely curable by non-invasive vision therapy that have been misdiagnosed as having ADD, ADHD, or autism. Vision disorders can lead to symptoms such as; loss of concentration, resistance to do school work, loss of focus on material, and others, it is easy to see how a misdiagnosis could be made. That's why we look beyond the surfaced symptoms and make our diagnosis based on clinically proven measurements of the brain's processing of the patient's vision so nothing is missed.
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At Performance Vision Therapy, we perform detailed vision exams that go beyond just getting a patient to see 20/20. Our exams measure how well the brain is doing at controlling and coordinating the two eyes together, as well as processing the information it is receiving.
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Our friendly, calming, and customized approach to each exam results in an experience that is unique to each patient. Patients with special needs can feel relaxed as we actively adapt the exam, even during the exam, to their specific needs to keep them comfortable. We believe that with a happy and comfortable ​patient, we can get the best measurements that allow us to make the correct diagnosis and truly treat the individual needs of our patients.
Concussion, Stroke, COVID, & Brain Injuries
"Because half of the human brain is devoted directly or indirectly to vision, understanding the process of vision provides clues to understanding fundamental operations in the brain,"
- Professor Mriganka Sur of MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Inevitable Symptoms from Brain Injuries​
Whether the injury is from a sports-related injury, a stroke, a COVID infection, or any other systemic condition or ​trauma to the brain, it is almost inevitable that the visual system will be involved and affected. As the processing of our vision involves just about everything portion of our brain from the front to the back and top to bottom as it coordinates with autonomic processes in our brainstem, it is no surprise the long list of visual symptoms that patients with even minor traumatic brain injuries (mTBIs) suffer from.
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At Performance Vision Therapy, we work with patients suffering from everything from concussions to strokes and feel the symptoms of that visual processing system suffering. Patients who sustain visual processing deficiencies and binocular vision disorder (BVD) from a COVID infection can be left with symptoms that last for years if untreated.
With each therapy session and treatment plan customized to your individual needs and goals, we can help restore those visual skills and relieve the symptoms.
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Seemingly Endless Connections to Vision
Over 65% of all brain activity is involved with vision
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only 5% of your vision is regarding "20/20".
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It comes as no surprise that there is a seemingly endless list of symptoms and ailments that are caused by problems with our visual processing system.
Common Symptoms of Visual Dysfunctions
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Double Vision: The simplest explanation of the most common cause of double vision is to simply state that your two eyes are not aimed at the same point. Looking deeper, in order to get them to aim properly and work together as a team, we must first find the root of the problem which is often found in the visual processing system in the brain that controls the eyes' movements. There are a multitude of different causes of these errors in eye alignment and our Comprehensive Eye Exam and Visual Information Processing Exams work to find the cause so we can create a vision therapy plan to treat it.
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Headaches: When we expand our definition of "Vision" to truly encompass all that our vision entails, we realize that our vision is mostly work done by our brain in controlling our eye movements, processing the information taken in, and using that information to make decisions about how to interact without environment. As we look at this truer definition, it comes as no surprise that when the visual processing system in our brain is not working properly or as efficiently as we require, it's only a matter of time before headaches are going to occur. Some common causes of headaches include eye misalignments issues that the brain is constantly struggling to overcome, accommodation issues, various eye movement issues, concussions (both recent and long-standing), and many other conditions.
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Fatigue: As we understand that vision is an intricate and constant process between the eye, brain, vestibular system, auditory system, and various other systems, an error or inefficiency in even one basic portion of our visual processing system can lead to dramatic issues and fatigue. If our visual processing system is not working efficiently and autonomically (without us having to think about it or focus on it), then extra energy is required to perform tasks that should seem effortless. Whether is it reading a book in school and trying to comprehend and remember the information or going through emails for work and meeting deadlines, inefficiency in our visual processing system will destroy chances of comprehending and learning new material and just about every aspect of our work.
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Dizziness: One of the many tasks of our visual processing system is to take all of the information from our two eyes and create an understanding or, as some call it, a virtual reality, of our real world. Our brain must very precisely process where every object is and where we are in our relationship to it and then make constant and instant changes as we move around in our environment. As our visual processing system is directly linked to our balance and the vestibular portion of our brain, errors in this processing can lead to major confusion of where and how we are oriented in space leading to dizziness and nausea.
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Poor Depth Perception: As our visual processing system in our brain takes in information from both eyes and processes our world, one of the very important tasks is taking those two images and calculating how far away we are from the target object. An error in this calculation and processing will lead to poor perception and can drastically affect how you interact with your world as you are unsure of where everything truly is. In children, minor errors can cause drastic behavior and personality problems as children feel insecure in their world. They may act out or show symptoms similar to those seen in autistic, ADD, ADHD, and other cognitive conditions. Vision Therapy can treat and often cure these visual processing conditions without the need for medications or surgery and this is why is it vitally important and recommended by countless pediatricians and child psychologist to have a thorough vision exam with a developmental or neuro-optometrist to rule out or diagnose and treat any visual condition first.
Our Technology
Immersive programs and equipment keep patients engaged and make for more efficient therapy sessions.
Our advanced software allows for completely customizable sessions to better target each patient's therapy needs.
Only Practice in the greater Los Angeles area with all of the most advanced equipment in one location.
One of the most important factors that contribute to successful therapy sessions is patient engagement and customized exercises. That's why we invested heavily in the best technology available for customizing each session to the exact parameters that each patient requires for the most effective treatment.
Our equipment and technology are not only customizable, but they allow us to record data and track progress.
With virtual reality, eye tracking programs, and interactive touch screen exercises, we keep patients engaged which increases the efficiency of therapy sessions.