Accommodative Problems (Accommodative Insufficiency/Accommodative Infacility) The eye has the built in ability to change focus depending on the distance of an object. The muscles must flex when looking up close and relax when looking in the distance. Sometimes the muscles involved do not work correctly either by not flexing enough or flexing too much. This can cause the words to be continually blurry, go in and out of focus from time to time or be blurred for a few seconds and then clear after changing focus distance.
Vergence Problems (Convergence Insufficiency/Convergence Excess) Eyes must be coordinated to move towards one another when looking up close and move further apart from one another when looking in the distance. When this system develops incorrectly words can become jumbled, slide into one another or split into two.
Laterality and Form Perception Problems (Letter Inversions/Word Inversions) Long term eye coordination problems or trauma can lead to difficulties in interpreting what the eye is seeing properly. Letters can appear to be the wrong direction or jumbled while reading. Words can appear to have letters in the wrong spot or out of order. Entire sentences can stop making sense or be skipped entirely.
Visual Processing Dysfunction (Form Perception/Peripheral Awareness) Higher level difficulties can result in letters and words not being in recognizable patterns. Letters can appear as unrecognisable symbols. The brain no longer has the ability to understand the interaction between letters and how they form into words. Understanding how one word connects to the other and how the flow of information connects can become difficult and require intense concentration.
