UAB School of Optometry, under the leadership of Drs. Wendy Marsh-Tootle and Kristine Hopkins, was awarded approximately $500,000 in grant funding by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for the Convergence Insufficiency Treatment Trial-Attention and Reading Trial (CITT-ART). UABSO is one of eight clinical sites nationwide participating in this study.

This the second CITT study for UABSO. The first CITT study was a multi-center clinical trial that showed that in-office vision therapy was effective for treating the signs and symptoms of convergence insufficiency in children. The current CITT-ART study will enroll 324 children nationwide between 9 and 13 years of age with symptomatic convergence insufficiency. The children will be randomized to 16 weeks of either traditional office based vision therapy or placebo office based therapy. Following treatment, assessments of reading and attention will be compared to baseline assessments. Researchers hope to determine what effects treatment of symptomatic convergence insufficiency may have on reading comprehension and attention in these children. Recruitment for this study will be ongoing through February 2017.