Hart Chart set – laminated

The classic Hart Charts are used for many exercises, such as focus changes, eye movements and central-peripheral vision. You use them at home, ideally during a programme with your vision therapist.

What it trains

• Accommodative facility – changing focus quickly and accurately between near and far.
• Saccades – fast, accurate eye movements between columns and letters.
• Fixation – keeping your gaze steady on a particular letter.
• Central-peripheral integration – keeping your focus central while registering what happens in the periphery.
• Visual attention – directing and shifting attention between relevant visual input.
• Monocular training – when you train with one eye at a time.
• Binocular training – when you train with both eyes together.

Who it is for

For you if you want to get better and faster at focusing from one distance to another, and for you if you want to skim a text faster.

How to use them

• The focus exercise is done with one eye at a time (eye patch over the other): hold the small chart as close as you can still focus, and place the large chart as far away as you can still read it. Change focus between the two.
• The column exercise is also done with an eye patch: choose, for example, columns 4 and 8, read the first character in column 4, then in column 8, then the second character in columns 4 and 8, and so on, until you have finished the twelfth character.
• Expand with more columns, and switch between vertical and horizontal rows.

Good to know

• Supplied as a set.
• Matte laminated, so the light does not cause reflections.
• Can be wiped and cleaned with alcohol after use.
• Typically used together with an eye patch.