Meet the speaker:

Amanda was born and raised in Southern Oregon. She attended college at Northwest University in Kirkland WA, where she studied music education. After College she decided to apply her love of teaching and helping kids in a more physical setting and spent the better part of 10 years as a gymnastic and dance coach in a program that focused on early childhood development. After moving home to Medford Oregon, Amanda had the opportunity to continue coaching and helped design and run a program that gave kids the opportunity to develop their gross and fine motor skills as well as providing the environment to grow emotionally and socially.

Amanda left coaching in 2016 to pursue a career as an optometric technician. A year and a half later, she made her way to InSight Vision Therapy where she learned about this amazing field, Behavioral Optometry, that was a perfect blend of her two worlds. She completed her certification in April of 2023 and has spent the last year mentoring other candidates going through the process. 

Amanda has a wonderful and supportive husband Dave, and one teenage daughter, Evy. In her free time, she’s a photographer, with a deep love of reading, baking, and theater.

Course Description:

Moving Vision Therapy away from the table and into the space around us. This is a hands-on workshop that will explore how movement is critical to visual development and why VT should involve the body and brain, as well as the eyes.

Day one will cover Primitive Reflexes, what they are, why they exist, what happens if they don’t integrate properly and why it’s appropriate to be working on them in Vision Therapy. We will also explore Rhythmic Movement Training (RMT) as a course of treatment for retained primitive reflexes.

Day two will include training in Body Knowledge and Awareness, Bilateral Integration (and how this aids in binocularity), Laterality and Directionality, as well as how to incorporate movement into Oculomotor, Accommodative, and Fusional procedures.

Participants are encouraged to dress comfortably as much of this course will be spent moving around and practicing the techniques together.

Course Objectives:

• Create an understanding of Primitive Reflexes. What they are, why they’re important and how to help integrate them.

• Highlight how vision develops along with the body and how working on body movements will improve the brain’s ability to coordinate the eyes.

• Develop a deeper understanding of developmental milestones, and what is appropriate for each age and what we should be asking of our younger patients.

• Build a foundation of movement techniques that cement higher level oculomotor, accommodative and fusional skills.

• Have fun! (and take that fun back to our practices and our patients)