Eight-year-old Ryan Kelly thought he was stupid and beyond help.

He performed poorly in class. He couldn’t read or do his homework, and he had low self-esteem. Ryan underwent the usual battery of tests to determine if he had a learning disability. Nothing showed up.

Standard vision tests showed Ryan’s eyesight was OK. Even so, one doctor prescribed glasses to determine if that would improve Ryan’s learning ability. Nothing worked.

”We took Ryan to specialists in Seattle, and he went to special reading classes,” said Ryan’s mother Jodie Kelly. ”One night we were working together, and he broke down crying. He said Mom, I just can’t do this – it’s too hard.’ ”

The family moved to Bend last year, and Ryan was given a comprehensive vision test by Julie Bibler of the National Children’s Vision Foundation. That test showed Ryan could see well, but that his eyes didn’t ”track” correctly. That meant he had trouble following a line of print, Bibler said, which affected his ability in every subject.

”You mean I’m not stupid?” he asked Bibler.

Bibler referred him to a vision therapist. After completing therapy, which got his eye muscles to track correctly, Ryan is doing well in school. He just made the honor roll at Trinity Lutheran School. And his mother has become one of the foundation’s volunteers.

”When they asked for volunteers, I said count me in,” Jodie Kelly said. ”I was blessed to come here and find out what Ryan’s problem was.”

The National Children’s Vision Foundation is a nonprofit organization in Bend that identifies and helps treat vision-related problems in Central Oregon children. The foundation seeks to screen second- and fourth-graders in Central Oregon.

Vision problems appear to be widespread, Bibler said, regardless of a student’s socioeconomic status. Bibler is the foundation’s only paid employee; she andtrained volunteers screen second- and fourth-graders.

The foundation is particularly interested in identifying vision-related problems associated with behavioral optometry, which seeks to understand the role of the eyes in thinking and learning.

Bibler said the organization tests students for distance and near acuity, depth perception, convergence, fixation or visual tracking, and focus and fusion.

The screening program is available to all second- and fourth-grade students in Central Oregon, including homeschoolers.

So far this year, Bibler and volunteers have tested about 1,000 students in seven area elementary schools. Last year, the foundation tested more than 2,400 students.

Of the children tested, Bibler said, between 15 percent to 20 percent failed the comprehensive exam.

”A lot of the kids can pass a standard distance test, but not the close-up test,” Bibler said. ”There are many pieces to good vision.”

And if one piece is missing, she said, it can affect students in different ways. A student with an inefficient visual system may develop problems in such areas as attention, performance and learning, according to the foundation.

These vision problems may not be detected using standard screening tests, but can often be recognized by trained people who can observe the behaviors these vision problems produce.

”The child may be labeled as unmotivated or lazy, have a short attention span and behavior problems and may have confrontations with authority figures,” Bibler said. ”Many of them are smart, but their eyes don’t work, and the children don’t understand why they don’t progress.”

Another symptom of a vision problem is that a student is able to read, but chooses not to and has low reading comprehension, Bibler said.

”About 85 percent of learning is done visually,” Bibler said, ”so if vision is a problem, most of a child’s ability to learn is affected.”

Poor vision may also contribute to delinquency. The foundation believes many incarcerated youth have some sort of vision problem. The problem contributes to behavior that leads to incarceration, Bibler said.

The Oregon National Guard Youth Challenge, a boot-camp type program for at-risk teenagers based in Bend, recently had 25 participants with learning issues screened. Of that group, 21 had vision-related learning problems, said Vince Hartney, the program’s coordinator of logistics and operations.

”Some of these students had already been seen as having educational problems,” Hartney said. ”We’ll take the results of the tests and make that available to the parents and guardians.”

The comprehensive vision testing results will be sent home with the students, Hartney said, and the results can be taken to an optometrist.

”There may be learning problems related to something else,” Hartney said. ”But the participants will be able to use these test results to increase their quality of life. We intend to have everyone in our next class, about 100 people, screened for vision problems.”

Once a student is tested and a problem is identified, Bibler can refer the student to the appropriate vision professional. And the earlier it’s identified, the better.

Foundation volunteer Jan Pittman, a retired elementary school office manager with 25 years experience working with children, said many apparently unrelated disciplinary and social problems can be traced to poor vision.

”I noticed many kids with severe learning problems that started with a vision problem,” Pittman said. ”Vision screening and diagnosis can eliminate a lot of classroom distractions.”

The results of comprehensive vision screening can be dramatic. One teacher told Bibler that the foundation identified vision problems in a whole class of students reading below grade level. But for Bibler, the payoff comes when a vision problem has been corrected and she re-screens the child.

One mother had just picked up her third-grader’s glasses, and he tried them on for the first time in front of Bibler.

”His eyes opened wide and he said Oh wow! Cool! Everything is clear!’ ” Bibler said. ”It’s the best thing in the world to find and help these vision-impaired kids.”

For more information about the National Children’s Vision Foundation, visit www.ncvfoundation.org