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Vision Training for Soccer and Life

The eye muscles are among the human body's least mature and developed muscles because of the way our infants and young children develop:

• An infant starts to develop their vision by rolling over and directing their head towards the faces of the their parents and relatives, as well as towards sources of light. And by pointing their body and head their eyes see and they begin to focus on these subjects. At 1 month an infant can only focus on objects 3 feet away. By 4 months they can identify their parents when they enter the room.
• A child in early and middle childhood gradually starts to learn to focus, track objects and see objects in depth, but development of the eyes and the visual processing system is severely limited to what comes naturally.  

Published reports suggest that the eyesight and visual processing system of most people is only 35% developed and that most are capable of accurately collecting and processing significantly more information about their environment.

Learning Disabled or A Visual Processing Deficiency

It is far cheaper for school systems to label a student as learning disabled when the student really has a visual processing deficiency that impairs their ability to:

• learn and be successful in school,
• be successful in sports and extracurricular activities, and/or
• pursue a career that they otherwise have the talent and desire for. 

Many school systems do not offer, require or recommend vision exams and visual processing evaluations because they are concerned they will become financially responsible for therapy if any student needs vision correction or visual processing training that is not covered by insurance (or the students family has not meet their insurance deductible for the current year).

In a 1983 study of sports referees, Dr. Arthur, Seiderman, Doctor of Optometry, Sports Vision Centre of Philadelphia, author of "The Olympic Eye" in 1984, and vision training specialist for NBA, NFL, NHL and MLS teams found that:

• 28% of the referees studied didn't have vision that was corrected to 20-20 and among those who did need to wear glasses many did NOT because many coaches, players and spectators consider glasses as a sign of weakness, 
• 30% of the referees studied lacked the depth perception and spatial localization, by which people visualize distances, the location of objects in relation to other objects and track both moving players and objects, and
• 1 referee's vision was so poor he was barely qualified to drive his car.

Mental quickness, accuracy in decision making and speed of processing depends on information gathered by all 5 senses. When two opponents are equally fast and strong the player that anticipates first, decides to move first, has the best first step and has the better understanding of the game has a significant advantage. Essential for successful performance in both Soccer and Futsal are:

• Comprehensive Assessments
• Improvement Planning
• Improved Understanding
• Mental Quickness
• Physical Quickness
• Improved Fundamentals

Improving Mental Quickness

Vision Screening and Training