Everyone makes silly mistakes from time to time. And to be fair, unexpected spilled drinks, bumped heads and slips, and trips can be pretty funny. It’s less funny, however, when these mistakes become daily and lead to harm or injury. 

While there are many reasons for clumsiness, what most people don’t know is that clumsiness sometimes stems from a treatable binocular vision issue. Here are some common binocular vision conditions that frequently cause clumsiness:  

• Suppression: Suppression refers to the brain suppressing visual information from one eye. When a person has poor binocular skills, they may experience alternating suppression where they use one eye, the other, and maybe both. When suppression occurs, a person loses essential depth perception that depends on both eyes to triangulate the position of things in space.
• Strabismus: Strabismus, also known as crossed-eyes, causes one eye to turn in, out, up, or down. As with suppression, the ensuing lack of depth perception leads to many accidents. 
• Amblyopia: Amblyopia means the brain only uses visual input from one eye. This frequently occurs due to strabismus or when both eyes need a different prescription and cannot work together. 
• Poor ocular motor skills: A person has poor ocular motor skills when they lack control over where their eyes focus and how they track things. They struggle with one or multiple visual skills: pursuit (following a moving object), saccades (quickly shifting between two objects), and fixations (ability to hold eyes on the appropriate location).
• Eye teaming:  eye teaming occurs when the eyes are pointing at the same place at the same time.  This allows the brain to merge the images from the two eyes, creating an accurate depth map of visual space.  

Common Signs of Binocular Vision Dysfunction 

If you’re unsure whether you or your loved one (especially children) suffer from Binocular Vision Dysfunction, here’s a few common signs to be aware of: 

• Extreme clumsiness: clumsiness every now and then is normal, especially in children. However if the clumsiness gets so extreme that you are worried for the child’s safety, or the clumsiness happens frequently, this is often an indicator of shadowed vision, double vision, or blurred vision. 
• Headaches: Individuals who struggle with their vision often spend a lot of time squinting and straining their eyes. This often leads to frequent and intense headaches. If your child complains often about headaches, it may be time to schedule a functional evaluation at the Washington Visual Therapy Center. 
• Lack of Coordination: If your child struggles with activities that require hand-eye-coordination, depth perception, or hand-foot coordination, this is another common sign of Binocular Vision Dysfunction. 

How to Treat Binocular Vision Dysfunction

At the Washington Visual Therapy Center, we treat binocular issues like these. We use vision therapy, which employs repetitive, supervised exercises to develop additional neural connections between the eyes and brain. Vision therapy challenges the brain to work in harmony with the visual system. Do you have a student, patient, or client who seems to suffer from chronic clumsiness, headaches, or lack of coordination? We would love to help! Please call or email us.