About EyeSkills
Sometimes a child's brain does not learn to use both eyes simultaneously. Instead of fusing the input of both eyes into "one" version of the world as is normal, the brain simply can't work out what to do. When this happens, the brain sometimes shuts down (suppresses) one eye to avoid becoming confused.
For many children (and adults) it is perfectly possible to give the brain another chance to learn how to see with both eyes - because the brain is inherently capable of learning pretty much anything.
Such disorders have complex and poorly understood origins in neurological disorders. Nobody really understand *exactly* what is happening... so experienced Vision Therapists call on their personal and profession wide experiences to try presenting different types of opportunities for a child's mind to relearn how to use both eyes.
If you are one of vast majority of parents in this world who have no access to the tiny number of available professional Vision Therapists (only around 2000 worldwide!) or who cannot afford the therapy, there is nothing stopping you giving your child a fighting chance by giving them optimised opportunities in everyday life for their brain to fix itself.
As a parent of a child with Strabismic Amblyopia it has become my personal mission to share simple techniques which can be affordably incorporated into everyday life with other parents.
As much as anything else, these apps are designed to help you - the parent - understand better what is happening to your child.
They are surely NOT as effective as the help a professional Vision Therapy Optical Doctor (VTOD) can offer, but they are certainly better than nothing in the overwhelming number of cases where the alternative is either nothing, the horror of surgery (which is essentially only a cosmetic operation) or the standard approach of Opthalmologists to advise patching (which does not help the brain learn to coordinate both eyes).
If the ideas and guidance in these apps does not work for your child, I can only say - keep looking and keep trying. Try to find a VTOD. Keep looking for new techniques. Don't give up. There is no rigorous scientific understanding of the neuroscience behind vision training techniques, but there exists a vigorous scientific understanding of their effectiveness. The brain is a wonderfully powerful organ capable of self-healing - what we are trying to do here is offer it the best chances we can to do just that!
Where possible we have tried to keep costs to an absolute minimum. Where we can, we have put time into DIY guides for making the accessories you need to train - but this whole process is extremely expensive for us.
Our mission is to reach and help the average parents of this world who's economic spending power is under $10 a day - which means we need you to support us. We need your economic energy to keep this social business afloat so we can help more people. Please understand that this is not a "take over the world" money making scheme, but an attempt to use basic market principles to offer as much value to as many people as possible, and sustainably for decades to come.
Thank you,
Dr. Benjamin Senior