Comprehensive Eye Examinations Queensland | optometry@cooroy

You or your child may struggle with reading, feel eye strain after screen time, or get car sick easily, yet standard eye exams say your vision is "fine." Behavioural optometry looks beyond 20/20 vision, focusing on how well your eyes, brain, and body work together.

These eye care services address vision issues that standard exams often miss, those subtle problems that can impact learning, work, and daily life.

Eye Teaming Problems (Binocular Vision Issues)

Your eyes must work together for comfortable vision. If they don’t, reading and close work may cause tiredness, headaches, or double vision. Convergence insufficiency, that's when your eyes struggle to turn inward, is common, making reading difficult even for smart children and adults.

Eye Tracking Disorders (Oculomotor Dysfunction)

Accurate eye movements are essential for daily activities like reading, playing sports, and driving. These precise movements allow us to track words on a page, follow a moving ball, or stay focused on the road. When eye tracking is poor, people often lose their place while reading, skip lines, or have difficulty keeping up with moving objects. For children, this can mean relying on their finger to follow along in a book, which may indicate they are struggling to track properly. Poor tracking can impact learning, coordination, and overall performance in various tasks.

Focusing Problems (Accommodation Issues)

Eyes must adjust focus for different distances. When this process is inefficient, you may notice blurry vision, eye strain, or short attention spans during close work, often this is mistaken for attention issues.

Visual Processing Disorders

Clear sight is different from recognising and understanding what you see. Visual processing issues affect memory, discrimination between similar shapes or letters, and organising visual information. This can even interfere with reading or math, despite normal intelligence.

Lazy Eye (Amblyopia)

Amblyopia is when the brain prefers one eye, reducing vision in the other. It’s often due to significant differences in prescription or eye alignment. Early detection and modern treatments, beyond patching, can improve outcomes.

Strabismus (Eye Turn)

Misalignment, even if subtle or occasional, can cause headaches and double vision. Intermittent strabismus may go undetected, leading to trouble during visually demanding tasks.

Visual Stress and Fatigue

Visual stress appears as headaches, difficulty focusing, and overall tiredness, especially after long hours of computer use. Behavioural optometry identifies and treats underlying visual inefficiencies, not just symptoms.

Reading and Learning-Related Vision Problems

Efficient reading depends on many visual skills. Children may reverse letters, read slowly, or skip words. These skills deficits often respond to specific vision therapy rather than traditional learning interventions.

Post-Trauma Vision Syndrome

Head injuries can disrupt the visual system, causing light sensitivity, double vision, or focusing problems. Post-trauma vision problems are common but often overlooked during recovery.

Computer Vision Syndrome (Digital Eye Strain)

Spending hours on digital devices causes dry eyes, blurred vision, and headaches. Digital eye strain is linked to reduced blinking, constant focus at screen distance, and blue light exposure.

Conclusion

Behavioural optometry services aim to address the gap between seeing clearly and seeing comfortably in daily life. If standard exams say your eyes are "fine," but you experience fatigue or learning challenges, behavioural optometry can help identify and treat what’s really going on—for children and adults alike.