Sunflower Vision Development Center

09/09/2025

"Bob’s raison d’etre has been to help people. He understands, better than most, the exponential nature of inspiring optometrists who in turn render care to thousands of patients who impact lives in the way his life was impacted by vision therapy. It is no coincidence that the first time he ever got an 'A' in anything was in graduate school when he attained the top grade in a neuro course in his second year of Optometry. It would prove to be prophetic, as the neurology spoke to Bob, and Bob would speak to the neurology to increasingly greater degrees throughout the years."

How Dr. Fisher treats, educates, and completes therapy with patients is in part due to invaluable courses taught by Dr. Bob Sanet!

Let’s begin with the end of what Bob posted on the DOC-L listserve today. After detailing his health challenges which have made his outlook for survival bleak in the short term, he wrote: & #8…

08/12/2025

To help children reach their full potential, get their eyes checked!

08/07/2025

👀📚 Children’s Vision & Learning Month is HERE! Did you know that as much as 80% of what a child learns in school comes through their eyes? When vision isn’t working efficiently, learning can feel like climbing a mountain with no summit in sight. This month, we’re raising awareness about the vital connection between vision and academic success. Let’s make sure every child has the visual skills they need to thrive in the classroom and beyond. 🌟

Want to learn more? Start Here: https://www.covd.org/page/August_VL

07/22/2025

Dr. Fisher recently received the sweetest handmade card from one of her thoughtful, young patients, and it made her day/week/month!!! 💞

07/15/2025

"I took Dr. Angela Peddle’s new book to the beach last weekend, expecting it to be a breezy read of 168 soft cover pages. It was more intense than I had anticipated. Let’s begin with the Preface. Dr. Peddle writes that she had trained at the Pennsylvania College of Optometry due to their advanced pediatric track and left there glowing. She then undertook a residency at SUNY College of Optometry which lit an even deeper fire, and was the single most important choice she made in her career. She returned to her native Canada filled with purpose and anticipation. I have known and admired Dr. Peddle from afar through the years, and presumed the book would reflect what I perceived to be her smooth and steady ascent to stardom.

But as it turned out, not long after Dr. Peddle began her practice, she hit a wall.

'Not a gentle resistance', she writes. 'A brick wall of skepticism, dismissal, and shaming … just the phrase ‘vision therapy’ was enough to be labeled. Vision therapy? Snake oil. You’re in it for the money. There’s no evidence … no one wanted to hear it. I wasn’t welcome in my own profession. So I cried. I doubted. I tried to shrink.'"

I took Dr. Angela Peddle’s new book to the beach last weekend, expecting it to be a breezy read of 168 soft cover pages. It was more intense than I had anticipated. Let’s begin with the…

07/02/2025

Vision Rehabilitation for Traumatic Brain Injury in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder

"Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if vision therapy for traumatic brain injury (TBI) related visual dysfunctions improves post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms. Methods: Three veterans with comorbid PTSD and TBI were selected for a retrospective single-subject A-B study design (i.e., baseline-intervention). A chart review consisted of PTSD checklist (PCL) scores, College of Optometrists in Vision Development-Quality of Life (COVD-QOL) survey scores, and Developmental Eye Movement (DEM) test times. Each outcome measure was analyzed pre- and post- vision therapy. A reliable change index for PCL scores was calculated for each subject. Results: All veterans undergoing vision therapy for TBI related visual dysfunctions showed an improvement in COVD-QOL survey scores and DEM test times. The reliable change index for the PCL score of each veteran was significantly lower from the pre- to post-treatment conditions, indicating decreased symptoms of PTSD. Conclusions: The findings of this study suggest a relationship between vision therapy and PTSD, with decreased symptoms reported on the PCL after treatment. The added benefit of including an eye-movement component in therapy for PTSD, which is utilized in evidence-based treatments such as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), has long been debated in the literature. Given the encouraging results of this study, further research is needed to investigate the efficacy of eye movements and vision therapy as a component of more comprehensive treatment for PTSD."

Request PDF | Vision Rehabilitation for Traumatic Brain Injury in Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. | Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine if vision therapy for traumatic brain injury (TBI) related visual dysfunctions improves... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on Resear...

06/25/2025

"In that article he wrote: 'The lower starting values of required prism power in the case series above can be explained by residual fusional convergence, divergence, or vertical vergence amplitudes, and accordingly, the required prism power is often far less than the maximum deviation measured after full dissociation with PACT. Thus, for patients demonstrating fusion with symptomatic phorias or intermittent strabismus, start with lower prism values and increase as necessary to resolve symptoms.'"

Prism occupies my thoughts considerably these days, as it increasingly factors into my decision-making (see here, for example, the second article in what will be a trilogy). That’s why this r…

06/19/2025

"The first few lines of the abstract are intriguing:

'We provide a summary of the research conducted in our laboratory on the relationship between ocular proprioception, general proprioception, and dyslexia. Dyslexic children show a marked proprioceptive deficit which affects motor control, attention and spatial perception. The spatial disturbances are expressed by the presence of a vertical microheterophoria which has very specific characteristics. It is associated with abnormal tone of the oblique muscles and can be modified by means of very low powered prisms and/or remote sensory stimulation.'"

On the DOC-L (formerly VT-OD) list serve, Dr. Qiaoqiao (Chelsea) Wang shared an article published last month in the open access journal Vision: Ocular and General Proprioception in Dyslexic Childre…

06/13/2025

"Digital screens are pervasive, not only at work but in our homes, schools and shops. An estimated 104 million Americans of working age spend more than seven hours a day in front of screens, according to the American Optometric Association. All that screen time can take a toll.

Too much exposure to screens can lead to dry or watery eyes, fuzzy vision and headaches. It can also lead to myopia, or nearsightedness, in some people, especially children. Some technology workers even describe short bouts of vertigo when they look at screens for too long.

One reason for the discomfort is that staring closely at screens for prolonged periods causes the muscle that helps eye focus to tighten up.

'That muscle’s not supposed to stay tight all day long. And if it does, it’s like picking up a light weight and trying to hold it over your head for hours,' American Optometric Association President Steven Reed said. 'It’s not hard to pick it up. But after a while, even though it’s not a heavy lift, your body just gets tired.'"

https://apnews.com/article/computer-screens-eye-health-e0c99719204526ed5f08423f1b15f557?utm_source=fb_paid&utm_medium=Facebook_Mobile_Feed&utm_campaign=AP+News+-+Content+Promotion+-+2025&utm_term=35%2B+News+Interests&utm_content=Screen+fatigue+is+real.+Experts+share+tips+to+find+relief&fbclid=IwY2xjawKme7pleHRuA2FlbQEwAGFkaWQAAAYTSyT8nwEeVLbzHXdQvCB19d-SAV8XYq0_s06fFFe__gipz7iQm_tJI20m3INyNKYhlto_aem_p4EbBbDjsNYNpSMwCt2m7w&utm_id=6664512304447

Digital screens are pervasive at work and in homes and schools stores. The American Optometric Association says an estimated 104 million Americans of working age spend more than seven hours a day in front of screens.

06/05/2025

"Cambridge.org states that 'A Whale of a Story' is used to refer to a very great amount of something or a very good thing, and that is why I selected that idiom as the title for this blog. It is already lengthy, but I’ll underscore that my purpose in writing it is four-fold:

2. To compliment Mr. Robinson on calling attention to the severe impact that visual issues beyond 20/20 eyesight can have on reading. It takes a great deal of courage to bear one’s soul regarding the dual disabilities of strabismus and impaired reading.

2. To point out that a gap in James’ story is the failure of his surgeons to establish that he had normal binocular vision after surgery. It was at the point that he failed school screenings for binocular vision that the system should have directed him to an optometrist for lenses, prisms, or therapy. By the time he consulted an optometrist his eyes had drifted so far apart for so long, that it was unreasonable to expect a 'fix'.

3. To suggest open-minded resources recognizing non-surgical as well as surgical approaches to strabismus, and the impact of strabismus on reading and academic performance. A superb resource is the Global Eye Hospital. In the United States, the doctors most conversant with vision-based learning problems in school-aged children can be located through covd.org.

4. To encourage individuals like James to channel their efforts as passionately toward preventing or mitigating disability as to championing it. There are several avenues toward doing this as related to strabismus, and I and my colleagues would welcome the opportunity to shed more light on this."

https://visionhelp.wordpress.com/2025/03/27/a-whale-of-a-story/

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05/29/2025

"The concepts in the paragraph above are profound on many levels, and as professionals in the field of vision therapy and rehabilitation we’ve been dealing with the data vs. anecdote conundrum for the past fifty years. I’ve had the privilege of being in this profession for nearly that long, and we’ve progressed from a data-impoverished field to a data-informed one (as Ciuffreda and colleagues pointed out). But data-informed doesn’t necessarily mean, nor should it necessarily mean data-driven. Many years ago, Dr. Don Getz argued for the fact that it’s the job of researchers to come up with explanations for why what successful clinicians do work, and not the inverse. I confess to being ambivalent about trying to keep one foot in each world."

From “Cargo Cults and the Disorganization of America”, by James McElroy: “Jeff Bezos has a saying that draws attention to our society’s cargo cult relationship to data: “When the …

05/12/2025

"What defines 'success' in strabismus therapy? Various sets of criteria or guidelines have been offered through the years. Dr. Cook does a deep dive into 'Flom's Criteria', and the modification of that first offered by Flom himself, and subsequently by Dr. Cook along with Dr. Bruce Wick. In his current masterpiece, Dr. Cook re-defines success in the direction away from the notion of 'cure' by strict clinical measures, to criteria for behavioral success complemented by a meaningful questionnaire that encompasses quality of life. He offers a case series of 75 patients, differentiating the approach to esotropia and exotropia, and the nature of oft-times anomalous but very meaningful binocular vision and depth, to illustrate his re-defining of 'success'. It is a unification paper that levels the playing field between surgical and non-surgical outcomes."

Every now and then, as Editor-in-Chief of VDR, the official journal of COVD/OVDRA, I’m honored to oversee the production of a lengthy and weighty article that feels like it’s going to b…