OCULA: Optometrists Christchurch

About Us

OCULA are Optometrists that work heavily with Children’s vision. Thanks to their technologically-advanced clinics, they can test each of the 17 different visual skills a child needs to perform at their best. Not only are they continually investing in the latest technology, but their optometrists spend a portion of the year researching and learning the very newest techniques – keeping OCULA at the forefront of eye care in New Zealand.

Vision is vital for the development and progression of a child. With their team of paediatric optometrists, they can make sure your child gets the best head start in life.

Children’s Vision

At OCULA they have dedicated paediatric optometrists who can examine your child’s eye health and offer advice. All assessments are tailored towards infants and children, and are fun, non-invasive assessments that will pick up any early signs of an issue.

Each child is unique, and a comprehensive evaluation is required to determine the specific areas needing treatment to encourage learning development and remove visual roadblocks. Great vision begins at day one and that is why OCULA implemented the InfantSEE programme, offering free eye checks from six months to two years of age and then continued care through your child’s school life and beyond.

An undiagnosed visual impairment can have a huge impact in life. Often if a child struggles to grasp the basics in reading and writing, this can affect not just their ability to learn, but also self-esteem, behaviour and life choices. That’s why, at OCULA, every child’s assessment is done by a registered Behavioural Optometrist who is also a binocular vision specialist, so they can look for any vision problems as well as learning difficulties or disabilities.

It can be overwhelming if your child has a visual or learning impairment. At OCULA, they are with you every step of the way, from assessment, diagnosis and treatment. With a network of educational psychologists, doctors, health care professionals, speech language therapists and occupational therapists who are on hand to help. Taking a multidisciplinary approach and working together to build a management plan tailor-made for your child’s health.

Behavioural Optometry

Behavioural optometry is a specialised field of optometry – in which not just eyesight – but how the brain processes what the eyes are seeing is assessed. Also known as neurodevelopmental or functional optometry, it is a multidisciplinary approach that incorporates the physical, neurological, and developmental aspects of vision.

When a child is not reaching their full academic potential, it is important to consider not only how clearly, they can see, but also how they are making sense of what they see.

Children with diagnosed dyslexia, dyspraxia, children on the autism spectrum, those with attention disorders, and children with auditory and visual processing disorders can benefit from an assessment by a behavioural optometrist. Research shows that 80% of children who have reading difficulties also lack the basic visual skills required for reading. Addressing these binocular vision or visual processing problems can have a profound effect on a child’s ability to learn.

Vision therapy

Vision therapy, also known as visual training, is aimed at re-teaching the visual process for those who missed the initial, natural opportunities to solidify these foundations (due to developmental delays or congenital disorders). Simply put, it is a series of specific activities to help a person to learn, observe and change their visual process. Contrary to its name, it is not just eye exercises.

The key purpose of vision therapy is to help the brain talk to the eyes in the most effective way possible, and involves use of the entire body through speaking, writing, or physical movement. Exercises can include balancing, throwing, writing simple words and utilising specialist computer software to train the brain.

Physical environment

With state-of-the-art Clinics in three different locations Queenstown, Wanaka and Christchurch all with available parking.

Atmosphere

From the moment you step inside, their team of specialists work together on an extensive, tailored treatment plan to ensure your child’s vision and eye health is the best it can be.

OCULA are here to help in whichever way they can. For more information check out our website or call one of our Clinics to speak to one of our team.