VISION

• Eye Co-ordination - The eyes do not work together and create double vision, tiredness and eye tension because it looks like the words are floating on the page.

• Loss of eye-field - Children who have problems with this often lose their place on the page and miss words on the sides of the page.

• Eye muscles not functioning properly - This is directly related to the clarity of sight and because reading material is presented in small print, the reading problem may occur.

• Diplopia - Double vision is the most irritating and unbearable of all vision problems.

• An eye-gaze problem - Paresis of eye muscles (partly paralysed) diminishes the ability of the eye to move in certain directions, and will influence reading.

• Eye-movement problem - The eye has to be able to do scanning movements and when problems with this exist, it can manifest in slow or jerky movements. The eye jumps around and sentences are being omitted or repeated.

In reality, it has been found that most children with vision problems have a combination of above-mentioned symptoms, which, of course, makes it very difficult for the child and his/her parents to understand the reasons. Treatment that might help could include lenses, prisms, magnifiers, compensating reading techniques, etc.

AUDITORY

The child may hear things not said and that other people do not hear. The child is also easily distracted by sound and battles to explain his/her thoughts in words. He/She may often stop talking in mid-sentences, may stutter when nervous or tense, may pronounce long words incorrectly or may reverse phrases, words and syllables. The child may also have problems with the hearing of the sound sequence within a word and may write only isolated parts of the word (e.g. 'pols' for 'pools') and may spell the word exactly like he/she hears it. To hear the finer difference in words, is also quite difficult (e.g. 'pin' for 'pen'). Treatment can include auditory and speech therapy.