Fixation means to align your eye to the position in space you desire to be looking toward.

Suppose you had a camera. You then focused it with great care on an object so everything was completely clear. Then you began to move it all around. When you randomly clicked the button to take a picture of what you wanted but the camera was not aligned correctly, you would have certainly taken a picture and developed the information from what you had taken. BUT it might not be what you wanted to take but it is what IS recorded at that time you took the picture.

If a person, no matter what age, wants to see something, they must have the connections between the eye and the brain in tack as was first discussed in the Field of Vision section. Then you must also make sure the eye is focused as discussed in the Focus section,to see sharply what you were looking toward while also being able to maintain that focus. Now we are looking at putting the appropriate information where it is actually going to process the information where it was intended to be "LOOKING."

Many lay people often, not recognizing exactly what is involved in Vision Therapy, will say eye Training or Orthoptics, as if the muscles of the eye are not strong enough and need exercise. The visual system is the most delicate part of the human anatomy and every detail works like a precision instrument. The muscles in the body receive an nerve impulse and then make the appropriate motor response. There are sometimes hundreds of muscles that will respond to a single nerve impulse from the brain down the spine to the arms, legs etc. The eye is structured very differently as every nerve fiber is linked to a single muscle fiber to the six eye muscles of each eye, that have to very accurately move and adjust the eye to the exact position in space for proper seeing.

Rarely do people with strabismus(turning or drifting eye) have a "weak" muscle that needs strengthening. Without damage to the eye, or a paralysis/paresis, most individuals can move either eye by themselves any where they desire. It is when you try to use both of the eyes together at the same time that the brain in effect, turns one eye up, down, out or in to avoid having to work as hard in maintaining completely accurate fixation and fusion.

This was a simple example I hope will help explain some important principals here. Most individuals whether child or adult, when they are concentrating on a task skip something that is right there in front of them and just not see it. This is so true with many that when reading will make simple mistakes such as calling the words, no and saying on. Also small words like was for saw. The smaller the area you must concentrate on, the easier it is to skip over because the accuracy of small "fixations", is more difficult that if the words were mommy or daddy, house, school. The more letters the less the fixations accuracy has to be as the information can be put in with greater detail as you are looking.

Since the ability of aiming the eye at the small word is very difficult, you may have actually skipped over the word. But then you say to yourself, something This is something I really need to process and need to go back and recheck what is printed. No the demand has changed, it will now require more precision in its movements, it then moves your eye backtracks across the word.

What actuality what went into the brain, was not "no" but "on". So then a person is made to feel bad, because in actuality they were very tuned to a situation, but the wrong information went in and then the wrong information came out. That is surly not something that could be labeled as a disease such as Dyslexia but in fact poor fixational skills.

When someone is constantly mistaking visual information errors with trying to learn, they often a labeled with such names as Dyslexia and many others. Please stop and think of it, you are reading across the printed line, and skipped over the letters "no", and said "on". You very well might be scolded when really what has happened is someone who is very bright. They were just telling you what you what they were really seeing as the information went into the brain. For many individuals self confidence and self esteem are constantly brought down, until at some point they also think they might be "dumb." During early teens years this can lead to many psychological problems, social difficulties, depression, truancy, delinquency and the list goes on.