When we think about vision, we often assume it’s a natural skill that babies are born with. However, vision is not an innate ability it’s something that’s learned over time through interaction, movement, and exploration. As children grow, they reach key developmental milestones that contribute to the development of their visual skills, laying the foundation for reading, writing, social interactions, and overall learning.
In this blog, we’ll discuss how childhood milestones like sucking, creeping, and crawling help shape vision, why each step is important, and how missed milestones can lead to learning challenges later in life.
Vision Is Learned, Not Innate
Unlike eyesight, which typically develops to its fullest by around six months of age, vision is a skill that requires time, experience, and learning. It involves a complex network of brain functions that help us interpret, process, and act on visual information. Babies aren’t born with fully developed vision. Instead, they learn to use their eyes through movement, experimentation, and sensory exploration.
Each milestone a child reaches—whether it’s grasping, crawling, or focusing on objects—plays a crucial role in building strong visual connections in the brain. These experiences help children develop the skills they need to use their vision effectively for learning and interacting with their world.
The Role of Early Milestones in Building Visual Skills
Let’s explore some of the key milestones that help build visual skills in infants and young children, shaping how they interpret and interact with visual information.
1. Sucking Reflex: Building Convergence (The Ability to Cross the Eyes)
The sucking reflex is one of the earliest reflexes to develop in newborns and is vital for feeding. But it also helps lay the foundation for convergence—the ability of both eyes to work together and focus on a single point up close.
Importance for Vision: Convergence is essential for tasks like reading, as it enables both eyes to aim at the same word on a page. Without strong convergence, children may experience double vision or eye strain, making close work challenging. If you child had problems latching on during breastfeeding or failure to thrive, this is a risk factor for vision problems.
2. Extension: Building Divergence (The Ability to Uncross the Eyes)
As infants begin to lift their heads and look around, they practice extension, which helps develop the ability to focus on objects at a distance—known as divergence.
Importance for Vision: Divergence allows children to shift their focus between near and far objects, a skill that becomes essential in the classroom when looking from the board to their desk and back. If your child avoided or sped through Tummy Time, this is a risk factor for vision problems.
3. Cross-Body Movements: Developing Tracking, Laterality, and Centering
As babies grow, they start engaging in cross-body movements, like reaching for toys with their opposite hand or crossing midline with their hands or feet. These movements help build skills in tracking, laterality, and centering.
Importance for Vision: Laterality (understanding left from right) and centering (knowing where one’s body is in space) are essential for reading and writing. Tracking is crucial for following lines of text, copying from the board, and reading with fluency. If your child avoided or sped through the Army Crawl phase, this is a risk factor for vision problems.
4. Creeping and Crawling: Eye Teaming and Focusing
Creeping (on hands and knees) and crawling (on the belly) are vital milestones that help develop eye teaming and focusing skills. As babies crawl, they train their eyes to work together and focus at different distances, a process that strengthens eye coordination.
Importance for Vision: Eye teaming helps children track moving objects, judge distances, and maintain focus on stationary targets like text. Without well-developed eye teaming, children may struggle with reading, copying from the board, or sports. Often, we are told that we should be thrilled when our babies start walking early. In reality, this could be farther from the truth. Without the visual experiences gained while creeping and crawling, the baby is at risk for not only vision problems but also “unexplained” anxiety because their visual world does not make sense to them.
5. Walking and Balance: Visual Stability and Depth Perception
When children begin to walk, they practice balancing while moving, which relies on their visual system for stability. The development of balance and walking contributes to visual stability and depth perception.
Importance for Vision: Depth perception is crucial for understanding spatial relationships and navigating spaces. It also helps with activities that require precise hand-eye coordination, like catching a ball or lining up objects.
How Missed Milestones Can Lead to Learning Barriers
When children miss one or more of these critical milestones, it can affect the development of their visual skills, potentially leading to challenges in school and daily life. Here are some common ways that missed milestones impact learning:
1. Difficulty with Reading and Writing
Children who miss out on early eye teaming and tracking development may struggle with reading and writing. Without the ability to smoothly track lines of text or coordinate both eyes, reading can become frustrating, and children may lose their place or skip lines.
2. Trouble with Attention and Focus
Visual skills like convergence and divergence are necessary for sustained attention and focus. Children who have difficulty coordinating their eyes may find it hard to concentrate on tasks for long periods, especially those requiring close-up work. This is confusing to parents and teachers because these children can see text at one moment but not the next.
3. Spatial Awareness and Math Challenges
Poorly developed depth perception and spatial awareness can make tasks like math and spatial reasoning difficult. Children may struggle to line up numbers, understand shapes, or grasp spatial relationships - all of which are critical for early math skills.
4. Social Difficulties and Low Confidence
Vision isn’t only important for academic tasks; it also plays a role in social interactions. Children who struggle with eye contact, visual focus, or interpreting facial expressions may feel disconnected or anxious in social settings. This can lead to low self-esteem and reluctance to engage with peers.
Supporting Your Child's Visual Development
Understanding that vision is learned gives us new ways to support children as they grow. Here are some ways you can help your child build strong visual skills:
1. Encourage Movement and Exploration
Allow babies and young children ample time to move, explore, and engage in activities that build core visual skills. Simple activities like reaching for toys, crawling, or rolling around can be incredibly beneficial for visual development.
2. Promote Cross-Body Activities
As your child grows, encourage cross-body activities that require reaching across the midline, like clapping games, catching, or drawing figure eights in the air. These movements strengthen tracking and coordination skills, setting a foundation for reading and writing.
3. Seek a Functional Vision Evaluation
If you suspect that your child missed critical milestones or is struggling with learning, consider a Functional Vision Evaluation with a Developmental or Neurocognitive Optometrist. Unlike a basic eye exam, this evaluation looks at how well a child’s eyes and brain work together to support learning.
4. Consider Therapeutic Lenses or Vision Therapy
If your child has been diagnosed with a functional vision problem, Therapeutic Lenses can be a useful tool in relieving visual stress. Vision Therapy may also be a valuable tool. Vision Therapy helps children develop foundational visual skills through targeted exercises, enabling them to build skills like eye tracking, convergence, and focusing.
Moving Forward: Recognizing Vision as a Learned Skill
Vision is a vital skill that develops gradually, shaped by early childhood milestones. Every movement, reflex, and interaction contributes to building the complex visual system that children need to thrive in school and beyond. When these milestones are missed, children can face learning barriers that affect their academic success and confidence.
If you’re concerned about your child’s visual development, reach out to us at Arizona Vision Therapy Center. Our team specializes in identifying and treating functional vision problems to help children reach their full potential. By understanding that vision is learned, we can take proactive steps to support your child’s learning journey.
For more information or to schedule an evaluation, call us at 520-886-8800 or email us at visiontherapy@live.com.
By Amy Thomas, OD, FCOVD – Developmental/Neurocognitive Optometrist
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