Optometric vision therapy -- results of a demonstration project with a learning disabled population

Thirty-six children attending a private school for learning disabled children were diagnosed as having visual and/or perceptual disorders. The experimental group received individual programming in visual and perceptual development at their appropriate developmental levels. The control group received instruction in physical education, art or music classes. Both groups received individualized reading assistance. Statistical analysis of the two year demonstration project, which included nine months of actual training, indicated that the experimental group made significant gains in reading as compared to the control group. The improvement in basic instructional level of The Informal Reading Inventory (Temple University), and the Word Reading and Paragraph Meaning subtests of the Stanford Achievement Tests, and the actual classroom reading levels were all statistically significant. The Informal Word Recognition Inventory (Daniels) and the Spelling subtest of the Stanford Achievement Tests showed a definite trend approaching statistical significance.