Workouts for The Eyes

By Anastasia Toufexis

With their monotonous rows of eyeglass frames, optometrists' offices used to be about as exciting as barbershops. These days, though, many eyeware outlets look like a cross between Romper Room and a video arcade. Colorful blocks, spinning charts, precarious balance beams and computerized gizmos with flashing lights all vie for the eye's attention. The games and gadgetry are the tools of "vision therapy," an increasingly popular but controversial program that aims at making the eye as quick as the hand through exercise and training.

Although medical experts are skeptical about the effectiveness of vision therapy, hundreds of thousands of Americans have spent big money in the hope of sharpening their sight. A six-month program of weekly 45-minute sessions can cost as much as $3,000. Believers range from anxious parents who want to better their youngsters' academic performance to pro-baseball players like Yankee slugger Don Mattingly who thinks vision exercises help him keep his eye on the ball. Joe Fugaro of East Brunswick, N.J., credits the treatment with improving his trapshooting. "You need to keep your eyes tuned up," he says.

, Spotting a lucrative way to diversify, about half the nation's 24,500 optometrists -- specialists who examine eyes and prescribe corrective lenses -- offer some form of eye-improvement therapy, also called vision training. The premise is simple: while eyesight is largely determined by genetics, seeing is an acquired skill, developed through practice, much like walking or swimming. Says Richard Kavner, a New York City optometrist: "The goal is to improve faulty connections between the brain and eye muscle." Common exercises include walking on a balance beam while reading a chart, completing connect-the-dot pictures and touching points in patterns that are flashed rapidly on a screen. Such training is designed to enhance the eye's focusing speed, depth perception and peripheral vision.

The therapy has reputedly helped children, including those with learning disabilities, improve their reading skills because it trains the eyes to work together and scan the printed page quickly. Anita Seibert of Northridge, Calif., says the training helped her sons Matthew, 10, and Brandon, 7, both of whom had been having trouble reading and concentrating. "We tried everything, ophthalmologists, counselors," she says. After six months of therapy, the boys started "getting A's," Seibert reports.

But ophthalmologists -- medical doctors who specialize in eye care -- remain wary of vision therapy. "There's a conceptual fogginess to the whole thing," declares ophthalmologist George Beauchamp of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, "and the treatments are fuzzy and ill-defined." Although optometrists point to hundreds of research reports that they say validate the training, most ophthalmologists dismiss the studies as anecdotal. "Bring me one study controlled for bias on the part of the practitioner and the person," says Dr. Paul Vinger of Harvard University, a vision consultant to the U.S. Olympic Committee. "Prove it, then promote it."

Medical doctors are particularly concerned about the claims made about children with learning difficulties. They say much of the improvement can be attributed to the focused attention of the family and the optometrist. Observes Tom Fogarty, spokesman for the Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities: "Sometimes just paying attention to a kid and making him feel good does something for him." Until convincing evidence is put forth, say medical experts, the value of vision therapy is strictly in the eye of the beholder.

With reporting by Wendy Cole/New York and Elaine Lafferty/Los Angeles