Behavioural Optometry – An Overview

Behavioural Optometry is a holistic approach to vision care

Behavioural Optometry is a specialisation of Optometry that focuses attention on the quality of visual skills, rather than just the ability to “see”. It explores how the brain, eyes and body work together, as a team, to make sense of light.

Although we are born with the ability to “see”, the process of understanding and utilising what we see is a skill that we have to learn.

Vision develops throughout life, becoming the dominant information gathering and processing system of the human body, and Behavioural Optometry explores how efficiently we have developed the necessary visual skills, and whether they are resilient enough to cope with intense near work demands of both classroom and office.

The Behavioural Vision operation model encompasses the whole body and brain systems, rather than just the eyes in isolation.

Behavioural Optometry can help explain and treat performance difficulties and symptoms that traditional optometry may not really explain

This is because vision is a much bigger concept than merely being able to see clearly. It is an integrated process of which sight is only a very small part, a process that allows us to understand all that we see so that we may plan and (hopefully) successfully accomplish our goals, whatever they may be.

Almost everything we do involves vision and so it’s natural to think that your difficulty could be something to do with your eyes or the information reaching your brain through your eyes.

Generally when you can’t see well traditional optometry can help you – but sometimes the problems are more subtle, or only occur under certain circumstances, or are actually difficult to pinpoint and perhaps traditional optometry does not seem to have any answers for you.