Read below to learn about visual saccades and learning in kids, including how saccades affect learning, more about what are visual saccades, or visual scanning, and what saccadic movement looks like. You’ll also find information on saccades and smooth eye movements and the visual processing needs that impact learning. This information on vision can be helpful for the occupational therapist working with a child or student with vision related learning challenges as a result of visual saccades.

Visual Saccades and Learning

 

 

For more information on saccades, check out this post on what exactly is visual scanning.

As therapists, we are often asked to provide consultation services to a child who cannot copy from the board, from one paper to another, frequently loses their place while reading, and has frequent errors in spelling and writing tasks, along with sloppy handwriting. These children are typically in first or second grade, maybe even third. They are good students who appear to be struggling for some unknown reason.  An underlying vision concern may be the culprit of these student’s difficulties, with the underlying concern being impaired saccades, or visual saccadic movements. 

What are Saccades?

Have you heard the term, visual saccades before? Maybe not! Let’s break this down into an explanation…

Saccades Definition: 

Saccadic movement, or more commonly known as saccades, is the ability of the eyes to move in synchrony from point A to point B rapidly WITHOUT deviating from the path. 


Typically, we look for these patterns to be established in left/right and top/bottom patterns as they are the easiest to identify. 


However, if the saccadic movement is not impaired, the eyes should be able to move in all directions in synchrony between two or more given points. 

Difference between Saccades and Pursuits

Before moving on, I want to clear up the difference between saccades and smooth pursuits. 

These two are often confused, but are really very difference. Saccades and smooth pursuits are the two parts of eye teaming. 

Smooth pursuits allow visual tracking of a moving item while saccades allow synchronized, rapid eye movement between two or more given points such as in visual scanning.

What are Impaired Saccades?

Impaired saccadic movement is when the eyes do not move in synchrony in a designated pattern such as left/right and top/bottom. 


They may jump randomly or move in uncoordinated patterns that can lead to confusion of where the child was previously in reading and written work. 

What Does it mean to have Problems with Saccades

Below is a simple passage that we would expect a first grader to be able to read and what they might read with an impairment of saccadic eye movement.

The black cat sat next to the pumpkin. 

The black cat liked the pumpkin. 
The black cat meowed at the pumpkin.

 

This is what a child with impaired saccadic eye movement may have read:

The cat sat to pumpkin. 
The black cat liked pumpkin. 
The cat meowed the pumpkin.

 

This example is a demonstration of the “jumping” that may occur when reading or copying a sentence. While the child was reading, they may have stumbled and corrected themselves realizing they were not in the right spot and missing words along the way. 

Children who present with impaired saccades ofen times are shy when reading out loud to peers and adults because of this. 

Identifying Saccadic Impairments

Impaired saccadic movements are very difficult to see in screenings. The most common presentation of impaired saccadic movement is slight jerks, or jumps at the midline or outer edges of field of vision. They are so small, that they can be missed or mistaken for a twitch. Despite their small outward appearance, impaired saccadic movement can have significant impacts on the child’s learning.


In therapy or a classroom setting, having a child read the letters of a simple word search from left to right and top to bottom can provide an indication if they are unable to follow structured patterns with supports such as pointing with a finger, or covering up the lines under the one the child is looking at.


Here are some helpful strategies that can accommodate for visual problems in the classroom.

What Causes Saccadic Impairments?

It is unclear what causes saccadic movement impairments in children. It is clear however, that the child’s eyes have not learned to move in structured patterns between two points rapidly, which can significantly inhibit the learning process.  

Why Visual Attention Matters for Learning

Visual attention is the ability to focus your eyes and brain on what matters while filtering out distractions. It plays a key role in how kids learn and function in the classroom. From reading across a line of text to copying from the board or tracking moving objects, visual attention is essential for school success.

This skill overlaps closely with saccadic eye movements. The quick jumps our eyes make from one visual point to another. When visual attention is weak, a child may lose their place while reading, skip lines, or struggle to copy from a distance. These issues often present as trouble with reading fluency, handwriting, or task completion, especially in fast-paced classroom settings.

The Impact of Shortform Video on Visual Skills

Many children today spend hours watching shortform video content like YouTube Shorts, Instagram Reels, and TikToks. These videos shift scenes rapidly, are designed to grab attention instantly, and rarely require sustained focus. While entertaining, they don’t promote the kind of prolonged visual engagement kids need for schoolwork.

Instead of training the brain to hold attention on a steady visual target, this kind of content encourages constant scanning and shallow focus. Over time, this can affect a child’s ability to engage in tasks that require visual endurance…needed for tasks like reading, writing, or completing a worksheet. The visual system becomes wired for quick novelty rather than sustained attention, which is a skill required for academic success.

What Parents and Teachers Can Do to Help

Parents, educators, and therapists can help by being intentional about building visual attention through meaningful activities. Set limits around passive screen time, especially shortform video content. Encourage games and play that involve scanning, searching, and visual tracking. Some ideas include: 

• “I Spy,” memory games
• Word searches
• Flashlight tag
• Scanning a wall for alphabet letters or shapes

In therapy sessions, focus on saccadic exercises that also build visual endurance. This can be activities like: 

• Tracking a moving object with the eyes
• Scanning for items in a cluttered scene
• Using printable worksheets that require visual jumps between targets.
• Simple adjustments like minimizing background clutter and increasing contrast in materials can also support attention and reduce fatigue

Finally, communicate with families about what you observe in therapy and how they can support visual attention at home. Offering structured breaks, reading together without distractions, and incorporating movement-based eye activities can help balance screen exposure and support the development of strong visual systems.

Signs of Saccadic Movement Impairments in the Classroom

Like many underlying vision concerns, screenings alone cannot determine impairments. 

Some supporting signs that a child may have a saccadic movement impairment can be found below: 

• Difficulties copying work from the board to a paper without errors or omission of words
• Difficulties copying work between two papers without errors or omission of words
• Difficulties reading passages of work, specifically 2 or more lines of text
• Losing place when reading frequently
• Utilizing a finger to track when reading 
• Frequent errors when spelling
• Poor spacing and orientation to the line when writing 

Final Note on Impaired Saccadic Movements

Saccades plays a crucial part in eye teaming, reading and writing. When it is impaired, the child may experience high levels of frustration, embarrassment and difficulties with their daily reading and writing tasks.  Like many underlying vision deficits, impaired saccadic movements has many variations in presentation, and should be monitored closely by therapists and educators to ensure referrals to the developmental optometrist are made when necessary. 

 

 

Looking for more information on vision? Check out my OT Vision Screening Packet for helpful handouts and a screening tool.

 

Occupational Therapy Vision Screening Tool

This visual screening tool was created by an occupational therapist and provides information on visual terms, frequently asked questions regarding visual problems, a variety of visual screening techniques, and other tools that therapists will find valuable in visual screenings. 

More information on saccades:

For even MORE on visual saccades and the impact visual skills play in learning, you will want to join our free visual processing lab email series. It’s a 3-day series of emails that covers EVERYthing about visual processing. We take a closer look at visual skills and break things down, as well as covering the big picture of visual needs.

In the visual processing lab, you will discover how oculomotor skills like smooth pursuits make a big difference in higher level skills like learning and executive function. The best thing about this lab (besides all of the awesome info) is that it has a fun “lab” theme. I might have had too much fun with this one 🙂

Join us in visual processing Lab! Where you won’t need Bunsen burners or safety goggles!

Click here to learn more about Visual Processing Lab and to sign up.