{"id":3422,"date":"2020-05-20T14:14:19","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T14:14:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.optometrists.org\/wordpress\/?page_id=3422"},"modified":"2021-07-28T09:25:43","modified_gmt":"2021-07-28T09:25:43","slug":"exophoria-and-esophoria","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.optometrists.org\/childrens-vision\/a-guide-to-eye-turns\/exophoria-and-esophoria\/","title":{"rendered":"Exophoria and Esophoria"},"content":{"rendered":"

Has your child been diagnosed with exophoria or esophoria?<\/h2>\n

Both of these may appear as an eye turn, and can be successfully treated with eyeglasses and\/or vision therapy.<\/p>\n

What is exophoria?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Exophoria occurs as a result of poor eye coordination, causing the eyes to drift outward, <\/b>or one eye to drift away from the other.<\/p>\n

Exophoria is generally noticed during near vision tasks, such as reading, computer use or homework.<\/b><\/p>\n

Exophoria is also known as under-convergence and can be associated with convergence insufficiency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

If exophoria occurs when looking at distant objects, it is called divergence excess (DE).<\/p>\n

What causes exophoria?<\/b><\/h2>\n

While the underlying cause is not clear, many experts believe that exophoria results when there are anatomical, mechanical, and innervation anomalies. These anomalies can cause difficulty with eye teaming and coordination, consequently resulting in an abnormal balance between convergence and divergence.<\/p>\n