Dyslexia, eye symmetry and dominance and training

[Jgriff]

Hello,

I am relatively new here but am impressed by the wealth of knowledge I see around here so i am reaching out for help.

I mentor a few young people. This includes teaching them to shoot. One young man struggles greatly with basic pistol marksmanship. He does very well when looking through a magnified optic or through rifle length iron sights. He describes his problem as a depth perception issue. He's performs well when he's is deliberately coached to focus in his front sight and follow the shot process, but when left to his own devices, he quickly falls part. Transitions between targets are a significant hurdle.

He very recently admitted that he is a diagnosed dyslexic. His eye dominance is neither clear, nor stable (though he has better than 20/20 in both eyes). It seems to change for no apparent reason regularly and one of his symptoms may be an ocular nerve issue. I can observe him shifting from eye to eye when shooting anything other than very deliberate slow fire.

I'm very hesitant to coach him to clamp one eye shut every time he picks up a gun. Do any of y'all have any experience dealing with anything like this or are there any good practices for coaching someone with eye dominance issues?

Thanks!

 

[Powder_Burns]

Put scotch tape on the lens of his glasses on the eye opposite of his strong side.
ie right handed shooter tape left lens.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

Good advice, and we used it quite a bit with our Youth Marksmanship training back in the 20-zeros.

We accepted all comers, even a young fellow with mild Downs. He had a very similar issue with vision/depth perception. What we found that worked for him was to set up his firearm with a dot scope, eliminating the need for dependence on depth perception. After that, he shot competitively with the other young folks.

I have issues (not problems, though) with eye dominance, in that mine is not fixed to either eye. For handguns, I do what works; and for rifles, I have simply shot right handed for decades, and whatever the eye dominance actually is, I can still shoot to the capability of the firearm, especially after cataract surgery two years ago, at age 72.

After training with the Marine Corps League on a week long training visit to the Marine Corps Teams in Quantico in the early 1990s; we picked up some specialized knowledge about eye dominance and how it actually influences eye resolution and light gathering.

We used the magic tape hack because employing a dark eye patch or other means to block light levels in one eye influences the visual acuity of the other eye. The brain's visual cortex compensates for the loss of light by widening the iris of the other. This means, as a camera tech can tell you, that wider iris (F-Stop) results in a reduced depth of field, and a lower degree of resolution. This makes the vision ever so slightly, and sometimes not so slightly, less clear.

In low light condition that squint can, as the brain is subconsciously trying to do, increase the light gathering capacity of the open eye. It's precisely like using a larger diameter objective lens.

Greg

 

[Jgriff]

Much obliged. Will give it a shot tonight