An estimated 25% of children are struggling with undetected vision problems.
An estimated 25% of children are struggling with undetected vision problems.
Thank you for stopping in to have a look at the website. Vantage Vision & Reading is in transition right now so please be patient with us. Dawn Bast in taking over all Vantage Vision services that have been offered in the past. Our office has moved to Dawn's home office. Please do reach out using the new email address or through our contact page and Dawn will get back to you. Looking forward to meeting you.
Thank you to our Sponsors and Support.
Alice Ross, long-time Educator in Kamloops, BC, developed these programs with Dr. Len Demarchi, optometrist, in 1960s to address learning disabilities or difficulties. Originally calling it "Bonding the Senses Education", she later named it Vantage Vision & Reading. Alice passed away September 17, 2017
Milly Saville began studies in Education in 1970, focusing on Special Education in 1979. She worked 10 years as Youth Care Worker for Prince George Receiving Home Society and, during that time, trained in Bonding the Senses Education 1989-1993. She updated in Vantage Vision & Reading in 2007 and has since been offering the service thro
Milly Saville began studies in Education in 1970, focusing on Special Education in 1979. She worked 10 years as Youth Care Worker for Prince George Receiving Home Society and, during that time, trained in Bonding the Senses Education 1989-1993. She updated in Vantage Vision & Reading in 2007 and has since been offering the service throughout BC, Alberta, and has now added Ontario and South Africa
Replacing Milly Saville as Program Coordinator is DAWN BAST, Learning Assistance-ELL teacher with School District 57. All emails from the Contact Us page will reach her.
Milly will remain available for training workshops
Vantage Vision & Reading programs could help your child learn by addressing particular underlying causes of his or her learning disabilities or difficulties.
Therapy is based on the vision skills necessary to read and to comprehend what is read. These include such skills as tracking, convergence, accommodation, and saccades function.
The vision skills interact with one another to inform an individual and any lack, in any area, will have an effect on perceptions of surroundings and self, resulting in sometimes detrimental outcomes, or, at best, an ability to function only with a great deal of stress and discomfort. Of course the individual him/herself may not be aware that they are under physiological stress, since they think this is “normal” to everyone. The anxiety that the performance of each task produces may often result in avoidance and in disruptive classroom behaviour.
We offer a free 20 minute consultation in which we do a preliminary screening test to determine whether your child might benefit from Vantage assessments and therapy which address vision skills through neuroplasticity.
This is more than a problem of ‘needing glasses’, though a visit to your optometrist is always recommended.
Reading Symptoms
Writing Symptoms
Behavioural Symptoms
If an assessment is required we book a one hour assessment at the cost of $50. From this information we plan an specific, individualized program and a tutor is trained for that individual.
You can do the therapy tutoring at home or have a tutor do the training for you at our office. [NOTE: office programs are not available at present due to CoVid protocols. Also, assessments may now be done via Skype and Zoom.]
Programs generally take 6 weeks, done 5 times per week. Subsequent assessments are done every 2 weeks with program changes made according to the student's progress.
Costs for all training and subsequent assessments is $40/hr.
Vantage Programs are easily adapted to Adult Learners as well - our youngest student has been 4 years old and our eldest, 86 years old.
Tracking - All 12 muscles of the two eyeballs must move together in an automatic and integrated manner to allow for smooth movements horizontally, vertically, and circularly in order to gather the necessary information.
During reading or scanning, eyes move in quick motions called saccades, but for very brief milli-seconds between these quick successive saccade movements, the eyes do not move. This stop time is called a fixation. When the eyes are fixating the vision system is partly responsible for storing pertinent information. If you have slow saccade function the eye’s ability to store information easily and well is altered and learning disabilities or difficulties with reading fluency and comprehension problems appear.
Using your eyes to look at an object up close is very different from looking at an object that is far away. When looking at an object up close, such as letters on a page, eye muscles must be able to work in partnership to pull the eyes in, or to triangulate (convergence). If the eyes do not work together properly, you will have double vision or one eye will roll out and will not be involved. In contrast, when looking at an object far away, eyes are parallel, and the eye muscles are relaxed. Convergence must be held in position for all near point tasks, or students may see double.
Success at seeing something up close or far away is also linked to the performance of the eye lens. Almost simultaneously with fixation the eye adjusts its lens so that an object is clear, both at near point and at far point. Any dysfunction in this system causes blurring and if accommodation does not hold at near point, students may constantly see a blur.