Healthy eyes.  20/20 acuity.  

Yet some folks (any age!) struggle to:

• orient themselves
• find what is right in front of them
• relate the details to the context
• relate the figure to the ground
• see the forest for the trees 

Why is it that an eye which CAN see in the periphery (if tested with lights on a dim background) DOESN’T see with a large visual area in the real world?

This is a functional form of Tunnel Vision!

Tunnel vision is a common response to
visual stress.

Tunneling is a way in which a person who is overwhelmed, visually or otherwise, may filter out “unnecessary” information.  This helps a person to reduce how much is “on their plate,” both figuratively and literally.  Tunneling helps a person limit their visual world to a manageable parcel.

The effects of a tunnel vision response do not limit themselves to challenges of objects “hidden in plain sight.”

Among the ripple effects of tunnel vision:

• Feeling ungrounded/ unsettled
• Needing to touch things (chairs, tables, walls) for the security of knowing where one is.
• Tendency to fidget excessively/ be in constant motion, to know where the body is in space
• Getting lost — in the real world and when reading
• Losing place– skipping lines or words when reading
• Difficulty putting big concepts together in reading comprehension (when reading to self)
• Using a finger to try to keep on track when reading
• Losing items/objects, misplacing things
• Difficulty with team sports/ ball sports
• Tendency to get excessively close to reading material
• Sitting excessively close to television or handheld video game screen
• Tendency to hunch over reading material
• Tendency to curl hands inwards when writing (so that hand covers up the last line of print)
• Tendency for motion sickness/ car sickness

This link is to one such child who was struggling with tunnel vision before getting help.

Read Grace’s story here:  

Vision therapy helps treat, correct neurological issues

Sound familiar?  These and other signs of struggle may indicate a vision problem.  Read more here.

For an outstanding article on the topic, published in the January 2014 edition of Optometry and Visual Performance, please read:
Tunneling– A Pervasive Vision Disorder, by Jeffrey Getzell