It’s hard to get kids to enjoy reading or even learning in general if they’re having trouble with their vision. Moreover, if their vision problems are never properly diagnosed, it could affect their comprehension well into adulthood. Dr. Tiffany Garcia Martinez has two vision clinics: Eyes of NM, a family optometry practice, and Eye Think Vision Therapy, which specializes in diagnosing vision problems that cannot be fully corrected with glasses or contact lenses alone. Issues such as double vision, eye strain and headaches, difficulty in concentrating and reading, brain fog, as well as a variety of other conditions that impair reading comprehension.
Dr. Martinez tells us, “We do comprehensive eye care, so we'll see them for regular routine eye exams, and then we will do a lot of different vision therapy with them, so we're working on improving the visual process through vision therapy. We do body, eye, and brain exercises to help all of those systems work in better alignment.”
Dr. Martinez says, “Seeing them for a primary care exam is really helpful because we'll actually prescribe normal lenses that that you would get from most other doctors, but then we also prescribe therapeutic lenses where we use lenses as a form of therapy to help open up the way their brain sees space so that they can take in information differently. We’re unique in Albuquerque with this approach. This therapy can improve visual processing, eye coordination, and better visual comfort.”
Dr. Martinez, an Albuquerque native, earned a degree in biology with a minor in chemistry from UNM. She graduated from Ketchum University, followed by an additional year of residency training in Pediatrics and Binocular Vision at the University of Houston College of Optometry. With a special appreciation for pediatric optometry, she worked with children with binocular vision problems and vision-related learning problems. She also broadened her experience by working with adult patients with vision impairments, newly acquired brain injuries, and soldiers returning from war with new ocular complications. Since 2010, she has also spent time working with the New Mexico School for the Blind & Visually Impaired (NMSBVI) to provide mobile clinics to low vision students throughout New Mexico.
Dr. Martinez told us, “We have a questionnaire that we ask parents when they walk into the exam room, and the parents are like, ‘Why haven't I ever been asked these questions before?’ Then it's almost like they don't believe their kid. The kids are answering truthfully that they have double vision, or things are swimming around on the page for them, and the parents ask, ‘Why didn't anyone ever catch this before? Why didn't my child ever tell me this?’ It's because that's how they see, so they just think that it’s normal. They never think to question it, and when you do question it, you get the answers, and it's like, oh my gosh, this is a real problem, so it's very underdiagnosed.”
“My favorite question has become asking kids, ‘Do you like to read?’ because so much of the time, if they say no, then my follow-up question is ‘Do you ever read for fun?’ and they'll say no, and you know so much of reading is visual skills. So if they don't like to read and they're actively avoiding reading, then there is a good chance that somewhere in their visual process, something is not going right. There's an opportunity to help so many people, and especially so many kids. Yeah, it's so much fun.”
Dr. Martinez’s practices are located at 7007 Wyoming Blvd NE in Albuquerque. Their phone number is 505.828.3937.
We do body, eye, and brain exercises to help all of those systems work in better alignment.