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Developmental Vision : Vision & Autism |
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| Visual problems are common in children and adults diagnosed or labeled on the autistic spectrum. Visual symptoms of autism can include avoidance of eye contact, staring at moving or spinning objects or light, frequently looking to the side, and difficulty with visual attention. Autistic individuals also often have delays in visual development. They may have problems coordinating their central and peripheral vision, eye movement disorders or a crossed eye. Autistic individuals can also ignore peripheral vision and remain fixated on a central point of focus for excessive periods of time. Inefficient integration of central and peripheral vision can result in difficulty with processing and integrating visual information. Motor, cognitive, speech, and perceptual abilities can also be affected when visual processing is interrupted. Vision Exams for Autistic Children and Adults Evaluating the vision of individuals with autism will vary depending on each patient's abilities and stage of development. Testing is commonly done while the patient is asked to perform a specific task, sometimes while wearing special lenses. This method of testing helps determine how the patient is seeing and how he or she can be helped. Depending on the results and extent of testing, lenses to compensate for nearsightedness, farsightedness, and astigmatism (with or without prism) may be prescribed. Vision therapy activities can be recommended to stimulate general visual development, eye movements, and the central visual system. The goals of treatment may be to help the patient organize visual space and gain peripheral stability so that they can better attend to and appreciate central vision and gain more efficient eye coordination and more efficiently process visual information. |
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