Dr. Lynn Hellerstein of Vision Beyond Sight speaks with Dr. Patrick Quaid, Neuro-Optometrist, published Vision Science researcher, best-selling author, and international lecturer, to talk about kids with vision and learning issues. Hear Dr. Quaid’s own personal story when he went through a vision-related learning problem at the age of 8 that was caused by a concussion due to a motor vehicle accident. What’s surprising is his vision problem went undiagnosed for more than a year! Even more shocking? Unrecognized and untreated pediatric concussions happen to kids more often than you think, causing problems in seeing, reading and learning.

Learn about Dr. Quaid’s program on kids with reading problems that resulted to doubling of reading fluency within 6 months. Find out about dysphonetic and dyseidetic dyslexia, and get advice for parents on how to help children with learning problems.

🔊 Click here and tune in to the show now to explore:

• Dr. Patrick Quaid’s vision-related learning problem at the age of 8 that was caused by a concussion due to a motor vehicle accident
• Learning difficulties partly caused by unrecognized untreated pediatric brain injuries
• Effects of the trauma to Dr. Quaid’s learning as a kid
• Key to getting kids to read early
• How Dr. Quaid’s career started
• Research on glaucoma
• Program on eye movements to treat the visual skills of dyseidetic kids
• Does the kid have a phonics problem or does the kid fail to remember what the word looks like?
• Vision therapy is really effective when you do it on the right people and when they graduate from therapy
• Average result of program: more than doubling of reading fluency within 6 months and close to grade level
• Dysphonetic and dyseidetic dyslexia
• Collaborating with other professionals to treat other aspects of the learning problem
• Advice for parents of children with learning problems – deep dive visual, hearing and speech tests
• Work for vision rehabilitation in Canada 

About Dr. Patrick Quaid:

Dr. Patrick Quaid founded VUE Cubed Vision Therapy Clinics out of his passion for visual rehabilitation, having suffered the consequences of a severe traumatic brain injury at age 8, so he knows firsthand what concussion can do to the academic potential of a child. He has served at the University of Waterloo School of Optometry as an Adjunct Professor and as President of the College of Optometrists of Ontario from Jan 2020 to Jan 2022. Dr. Quaid has published as a first author over 30 formal publications in both optometric and medical journals and/or textbook chapters on topics ranging from the effect of oculomotor dysfunction on reading efficiency in children to the effects of concussion on vision. He has also published on visual field issues related to glaucoma and the relationship between open angle glaucoma and perfusion pressure using scanning laser topography imaging methods. Dr. Quaid and Dr. Singman (MD PhD) also jointly received an Award of Excellence in research pertaining to concussion from the USA-based Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association (NORA) group.

In addition to his training to as an Optometrist within the NHS Hospital Eyecare System in the UK, Dr. Quaid attained his PhD in Vision Science in 2006 along with his post-doctoral year in 2007 from the University of Waterloo and subsequently received his USA Neuro-Visual Rehabilitation Board Certification (FCOVD) Fellowship designation in 2011.

Dr. Quaid makes it a priority to publish data from his clinics to show clinical translation and has attained the rare achievement of receiving on-going annual funding from the Canadian Federal government for doing so over the last 8 years. In mid-2020, he wrote a book directed at educating parents and teachers of children with learning difficulties on the importance of visual skills “beyond 20/20” (titled “Learning to See is Seeing to Learn”) with over 20,000 copies sold (bestseller list in its section with Amazon for 2 years straight). Dr. Quaid makes a point of showing videos of real cases in his lectures to illustrate how we can often make immediate and significant gains by realizing how powerful dynamic visual skills are when functioning appropriately. In April 2022, Dr. Quaid was formally recognized by the Ontario Superior Court as an expert in Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation, specifically in the realm of post-concussion syndrome (PCS) in a landmark case which led to a $2.6m settlement mainly revolving around vergence based visual dysfunction. This case has been cited 22 times in lower court (LAT) decisions. Dr. Quaid is also currently an Officer in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserves (RCA).

Connect with Dr. Patrick Quaid and VUE Cubed Vision Therapy:

Website | Facebook | Instagram | LinkedIn 

Check out these free articles from Dr. Quaid to learn more about his works discussed in the podcast!

Why Some Children Struggle to Read, and How You Can Help Them by Quaid and Fountain - Click here for a free copy!

Association between reading speed, cycloplegic refractive error, and oculomotor function in reading disabled children versus controls by Quaid and Christian (2013) - Click here for a free copy!

Outcome Measures of In-Office Optometrical Visual Rehabilitation Intervention on Oculomotor Function, Visual Processing Skills, and Reading Efficiency Scores in Children with Formally Identified Academic Difficulties by Christian, Cunningham and Quaid (2024) - Click here for a free copy!

“About half of our pediatric cases that are sent to us as learning difficulty cases don’t really have a history of being born premie or having a low birth weight but they have at least one incident that would probably qualify as a concussion but it was one of those things that was kind of brushed aside by the parents.” – Dr. Patrick Quaid