How Vision Exercises Can Improve Coordination for Kids With Cerebral Palsy

One million Americans of all ages live with cerebral palsy. For kids, this neurological disorder affects the ability to explore their world, as it impacts muscle tone, posture, movement, and ultimately coordination.

Our skilled team of neuro-optometrists here at DeyeNAMICS offers targeted therapies for kids with cerebral palsy. Here, we examine the elements of coordination and how we improve it for kids through vision exercises.

What is Coordination?

Put simply, coordination in the human body involves getting different organs, tissues, and the brain to work together simultaneously toward a common goal. 

As you might imagine, several factors contribute to good coordination, including:

• Balance
• Vision
• Posture
• Spatial awareness
• Neurological processing

So, for example, if you want to throw a ball accurately, you need to be able to maintain balance, see clearly and with depth perception, and have the ability to use your arm to orient the ball properly. And these systems must work together harmoniously.

Cerebral Palsy and Coordination

For kids with cerebral palsy, coordination can be challenging. This condition can disable your child’s ability to control their muscle movements, leading to:

• Muscle stiffness (spasticity)
• Slow, twisting movements
• Jerking movements
• Involuntary muscle spasms

Each of these symptoms can disrupt coordination, making daily movement physically and emotionally difficult.

Further complicating matters is the fact that up to 75% of kids with cerebral palsy also have vision issues, such as visual acuity problems and eye tracking issues like strabismus which can impact depth perception.

Improving Coordination Through Vision Rehabilitation

Through our comprehensive vision rehabilitation services, we offer targeted programs and exercises for kids with cerebral palsy, such as:

• Exercises to improve eye tracking 
• Exercises to improve visual processing
• Special lenses, such as prisms, to help with focus
• Balance exercises

We also offer Neuro-Visual Postural Therapy™, an innovative technique that restores balance between two key processes: the spatial visual process and focal visual process through intentional bodily movement in conjunction with targeted eye movements. The spatial visual process works with balance and position centers in the body to influence balance and posture, while focal vision is directed by attention. 

When we get these two visual processes to coordinate better, we can improve overall coordination in your child.

A Personalized Plan for Your Child

To find out which approach to visual rehabilitation through vision, posture, and balance therapies will work best for your child, contact us at one of our offices in Sacramento, Bellflower, or Valencia, California; Guildford, Connecticut; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; or Plano, Texas, to set up a consultation. From there, we’ll answer your questions, explain your options, and work with you to improve your child’s quality of life through our customized programs.