Why can Behavioural Optometry explain and treat difficulties that Traditional optometry can not?
Behavioural Optometry is based upon an extended, more holistic, model of the visual system that considers the eyes as just one part of the entire information uptake and processing system.
Sight is obviously important in order to identify objects but it is equally important that we see things effortlessly, where they are, and in context.
The Behavioural Optometric Model is constantly mindful of the ultimate purpose of the visual system, which is to understand the world around us and operate within it. So testing is designed to explore our ability to use our eyes to take in and process visual information under various conditions.
Surely if you can see, then you can see? What else is there?
Behavioural Optometry is obviously also concerned that you should be able to see small detail. However, the Behavioural Optometry Model is equally concerned that, not only can you see that letter “a” in the word cat, but that you can also comfortably and effortlessly perceive it exactly midway between the “c” and the “t” , that you recognise the “a” whatever font it is written in, that you can appreciate it in context with the surrounding letters and with immediate meaning and visual imagery (of a cat), that you can simultaneously process a few words ahead of it without moving your eyes, and all whilst sustaining a relaxed upright posture, filtering out a distracting television program and being simultaneously aware of someone walking into the room and calling you for your tea.
In a sporting scenario the equivalent would be the ability to sustain a relaxed balanced posture whilst running to intercept a moving ball, simultaneously awareness of the position and likely action of opposition players on the field, and developing your own ongoing game plan so that you can deftly recover the ball and deliver it to the exact spot at the exact same time as an appropriate member of your team arrives there, in space, to catch it.
Behavioural Optometry is a specialisation within Optometry that focuses attention on the QUALITY of visual skills rather than just the ability to “see”. It investigates how the brain, eyes and body work together as a team to make sense of light entering the eyes.
Although we are born able to ‘see’, the process of UNDERSTANDING what we see is a learnt skill. Vision develops throughout life to become 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.
To understand the importance of Behavioural Optometry it is necessary to understand the difference between SIGHT and VISION.
Optometrists define SIGHT as the ability of the eyes and pathways to discriminate and resolve small likenesses and differences (detail) critical to identifying or determining what an object is. But VISION describes a more dynamic and interactive process, essentially a whole INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEM developed through experience to gain understanding of the external visual space world, in order to understandand make sense of a visual situation or event, enabling us to direct or co-ordinate PURPOSEFUL action in response.
Vision is a learned process from which emerges an understanding of what is seen, where it is and how to react to it.
Vision is much more than simply seeing clearly. It is the entire process whereby an individual understands what he sees. Not only is vision the understanding of that which is seen, but it is also the ability to use this information to direct one’s own actions and motor activities (such as reaching out to pick up a glass or jumping over a stream) accurately and efficiently with a minimum expenditure of effort and energy.
For example, in a person driving a car, vision is much more than reading license plates clearly at two hundred feet. Vision is the total process whereby the spatial relationships between the cars and trucks and other things (moving and stationary) around are taken in and processed by the driver in order to guide the car safely to its desired destination, without an accident and with minimum stress on the driver. Vision judges the relative speeds of the other cars, and alerts the driver to a pedestrian stepping into the road or another car at an intersection, or the door of a parked car opening.
Vision is directs the baseball player to swing the bat at exactly the right moment at exactly the right place in space to make contact and hit a home run.
Vision is used by students to understand what they read and to direct the pencil across the page to answer an essay test or fill in the blanks on a quiz.