Parents Active for Vision Education (P.A.V.E.)

Marjie Thompson

Twenty-two years ago, Marjie Thompson of San Diego, California took her 12-year-old son Scott to see behavioral optometrists at the San Diego Center, in San Diego, California for Vision Care when all other avenues had failed to help her son achieve in school. Despite the fact that Scott had nearly perfect eye exams since he was small, optometrists there found he had problems with eye coordination, focusing, and the ability to visually pick out specific words or symbols when they were surrounded by other words and symbols.  Fourteen hours of therapy later, Thompson said, her son’s reading level increased by six years.

In 1988, Marjie Thompson founded Parents Active for Vision Education (P.A.V.E.®), a national nonprofit organization whose mission is to raise public awareness of the crucial relationship between vision and achievement, and to make early diagnosis and treatment of hidden visual problems a national priority.  Marjie’s goal was to prevent other children from suffering academic hardship due to an undiagnosed vision problem the way her son unnecessarily suffered.

In Memory of…

-Excerpt  from NORA’s (Neuro-Optometric Rehabilitation Association) Newsletter

Funeral services for Marjie Thompson, COVT, were held Thursday, December 8, 2005 in Chula Vista, California.  Although Ms. Thompson’s primary focus was on developmental vision care and educating the public accordingly, her work has impacted, and will continue to impact, all aspects of the field of vision therapy and vision rehabilitation. Marjie will be greatly missed.