What do I need to do with my dyslexic son?

[Perry]

He is 10 years old and currently in 4th grade at ps. He went to a private school for 1st and 2nd grades, where they used Orton Gillingham. It was very expensive, and I really didn't think it was helping all that much, so we sent him to ps in 3rd grade and started to work with him at home. PS has him in a pull out program 30 minutes a day, but they are mostly working on comprehension. I have begged and pleaded with them to use something like RR or ABeCeDarian with fluency practice, but they are adamant that they should concentrate on comprehension. His phonemic awareness is pretty good, but his fluency is poor. His vocabulary isn't great either. We've been doing AbeCeDarian at home, but I know we're just not as consistent as we need to be. Tonight he lost it, said he was stupid, the kids at school tell him he's stupid, and he wants to kill himself. I homeschool his sisters, but have resisted bringing him home because he REALLY dislikes school and it's so hard to get him to cooperate. I know it's mostly out of frustration, but I know we're going to have some battles ahead, and I'm not looking forward to that. Anyway, after his breakdown tonight, I don't think I have any choice but to bring him home.

 

So. What are some things I can do? I like ABeCeDarian and want to continue it, but he's going to need lots more than that. I know what we need to do for fluency (repeated readings, etc.) His fundamental problem is poor Rapid Automatic Naming. Any ideas on how we can address that? How about vocabulary for a student with weak language skills? His sisters use Vocabulary for Classical Roots but I don't know if he'd be able to handle that. Also, any ideas on how to deal with his frustration? He says he knows he's not improving (it's true) so why bother trying. I can certainly sympathize, but we've explained (repeatedly) that he is dyslexic, not stupid, and he will have to work harder than other kids. He's not buying it. Poor guy.

 

Thanks for any ideas.

[Melissa in Australia]

hi, I have 2 sons with dyslexia, and everyone has it to differing degrees, so what works for me might not help you, my oldest son couldn't read very much until age 11, then he jumped ahead, he is reading a huge amount of books now, and has no problem with reading,( he is 13 now). he has really big problem with spelling/ writing. I have him doing spelling workout f as word study he doesn't do any tests, and doesn't do the proofreading ( he cannot identify the errors, as that is how he writes) he is doing Rod and staff grammar 6, and does most of it orally, except the diagramming. I only get him to write one paragraph for history ,etc. that has a minimum of 7 sentences.I have been told by a lot of people with dyslexic children that the writing will come very soon, around the age of 15.

 

my other son with Dyslexia is 10 , he has just started to read books like' The matchlock gun' , I would say this is a little slow for his age, but I am not fussed, as I am sure he will improve when he turns 11. He has real trouble writing, if he has to write anything by himself it is unreadable, so he does everything as narration, I then write it down and he copies it.

It is a good idea to stop the frustration with your son. People with dyslexia have usually an above average IQ. they can be very creative, and have a great ability to solve problems ( like mechanical problems) because of their ability to use their brain differently from ordinary people.

my older son had major frustration problems. I now know how to identify the frustration before it gets to the stage of riping up pages, when he is having a bad day, we just step back a little, and do everything orally.he then relaxes, and tries harder in his work. he is very bright, and a whizz at math. wants to be an engineer

 

MelissaL

[Rod Everson]

Melissa and Perry,

 

Both of you should go to the COVD website, put your zip code into the "Locate a Doctor" search box and find the nearest developmental optometrists. Your kids need an evaluation to rule out vision skill deficits that are responsible for reading and other learning problems.

 

I'm reasonably certain that the OD will find that your kids have been fighting vision problems through their school years. The 11-year-old's probably resolved on their own, but not likely in the most desirable manner. It would be pure luck if the 10-year-old had the same thing happen at the same age.

 

Rod Everson

OnTrack Reading

 

[Stacy in NJ]

Obviously, this is a board for the parents of special needs kids. You appear to be a service provider with a particular point of view. You need to qualify your advice with this information. Not all reading problems relate to vision issues. Vision therapy is not the only therapy available, or even desirable, for children experiencing learning or reading problems. For every parent that can speak about the effectiveness of VT, there are others who feel it was waste of resources. If all reading difficulties could be resolved with VT what a wonderful world it would be.

 

To the original poster, I recommend the book Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz. It's available from most libraries, and it's out in paperback.

[Claire]

Obviously, this is a board for the parents of special needs kids. You appear to be a service provider with a particular point of view. You need to qualify your advice with this information. Not all reading problems relate to vision issues. Vision therapy is not the only therapy available, or even desirable, for children experiencing learning or reading problems. For every parent that can speak about the effectiveness of VT, there are others who feel it was waste of resources. If all reading difficulties could be resolved with VT what a wonderful world it would be.

 

To the original poster, I recommend the book Overcoming Dyslexia by Sally Shaywitz. It's available from most libraries, and it's out in paperback.

 

I have known Rod from forum postings for about ten years. He is an accomplished tutor with a genuine interest in helping children, and his opinion is sought out on the one professional forum I frequent -- in part because he has done so much research in the area, and in part because he is so meticulous in his reasoning and how he cites sources and cases. How he posts here is more in the nature of the conclusions he has reached from personal experience with a wide variety of children and more than a decade of working as a professional reading tutor.

 

We *all* have a point-of-view based on our personal (and, in some cases, professional) experience. I can tell you right now that the first two years we posted on the professional forum, Rod and I had some vigorous discussions about the value of vision therapy for reading problems. I knew that VT had helped my dd; Rod was on the other side of those lively discussions! You can read about how he came to change his mind on his website, which he has posted here on more than one occasion -- including when he introduced himself to the board, explained who he was, and made sure he was welcome.

 

I have never seen Rod imply that vision therapy is the only therapy available for children with reading problems. What I have seen him say is that, in his private practice as a reading tutor, he has observed that somewhere on the order of 80% of the children coming to him probably have undiagnosed visual efficiency problems.

 

On a different note, I have read Shaywitz's book. It has some value in terms of educational research, but it also has major flaws. Shaywitz has no background at all in vision, yet she feels free to dismiss it as a possible contributing factor to reading problems. Why? Because she hasn't bothered to study the research in this area herself. I think it's fine for parents to go to their library and check out the Shaywitz book to read. My bet is that most parents will find that it does not provide enough practical, useful information to make purchase of the book worthwhile.

 

IMO, Rod's point-of-view is a valuable one for this board. Most of us who post here have experience only with our own children, and this tends to color our views of what works and what doesn't work. Rod has the advantage of having worked with a wide variety of children. I would hate to see him leave this board just because his opinion is at variance with someone else's here.

[Claire]

I know what we need to do for fluency (repeated readings, etc.) His fundamental problem is poor Rapid Automatic Naming. Any ideas on how we can address that? How about vocabulary for a student with weak language skills?

 

Slow RAN is actually a neurological problem. The only therapy I know of that attempts to work directly on RAN is NeuroNet.

 

I do know one parent whose dd had great difficulty learning to read (no other academic problems) and who got a diagnosis of slow RAN from a Johns Hopkins evaluation. Her IQ and all other evals were very high except for her reading test scores, which were very low. This mother was pretty desperate because JH did not offer any advice on remediation strategies beyond what the mother was already doing. It seemed to me the slow RAN score was out-of-keeping with the other scores in the eval, so I suggested getting a developmental vision eval. My thinking was that RAN could test abnormally low if the girl had undiagnosed visual efficiency deficits. In fact, the developmental vision eval did show severe convergence insufficiency and a few other problems. So, I am in agreement with Rod that a developmental vision evaluation would be a good idea. At the very least it would rule vision out as a contributing factor in your son's reading difficulties.

 

If you are indeed dealing with slow RAN that is neurological in origin, and visual efficiency deficits have been ruled out, there are specific drills and scaffolding strategies you can use to build your son's RAN as it relates specifically to reading. I would recommend posting on the ReadNOW list, as I'm pretty sure one of the regulars there is experienced in this kind of approach. It's really what I consider to be a specialized area of reading remediation. Basically you use frequent short drills that start on a very basic level and very gradually increment difficulty level while simultaneously incorporating scaffolding strategies to make each incremental level of difficulty attainable by the student. It is a very structured approach that incorporates a lot of repetition.

 

I am going to stop here and post my suggestions for vocabulary separately. I'm not sure from your post whether comprehension is a concern of yours or not. If it is, are the comprehension problems related to material that your son listens to as well as material that he reads?

[Perry]

Thanks for responding. His listening comprehension is pretty good (not phenomenal, though, like his sisters), but his reading comprehension is low. I really think if I could get his fluency up his comprehension would be fine. I do wonder about his ability to visualize. I'm thinking about trying Seeing Stars with him. Have you used it?

[Claire]

Since his listening comprehension is okay, it's highly likely that you are exactly right -- it is the fluency problem holding him back.

 

I have not used Seeing Stars and am not a huge fan, from what I know of it. It's not a bad program, and it works well for some children. (I just think other approaches usually work better.)

 

For vocabulary, I found that the WordSmart computer CDs worked really well for my dd. They can be done independently by the student for about 20 minutes a day. All of the words and definitions are presented orally (student can click to hear something spoken) as well as in printed format, so reading skills don't have to be great. Also, before moving on to the next CD in the series, it's easy to have the student run through all of the lessons as a review. You would probably want to start your son in Volume B. (They keep re-packaging the CDs, but if you look closely at the pictures on the website, you may be able to see which volumes are which.) These CDs are very expensive if purchased directly from the company (ask me how I know :001_smile:), so you might want to check eBay for a used CD or used set. If you purchase used, *be sure* to get the original serial # that came with each CD. You need that serial # to be able to install the program on your computer, and the company will not give it to you if you were not the original purchaser.

 

Another excellent program is supposed to be Vocabulary Through Morphemes. I have not used that one myself, because it came out after we needed it, but I have heard very good things about it. I'm pretty sure this program is scripted, so it would be easy for you to use, but it would require one-on-one.

[Stacy in NJ]

I didn't ask him to leave. I asked that he qualify his advise with information about his professional interests.

 

The reason that Shaywitz dismisses VT as a legitimate remediation for reading issues is because within the scientific community there are no, zero, zippo, nada studies that offer peer reviewed and validated research on the effectiveness of VT. And, Also, because VT and other similar therapies have a long history of offering desperate parents "magic pills", that cost a small fortune but are unproven.

 

If VT worked for your dc, fantastic. I'm glad for you. But offering VT up as an all purpose problem solver is misleading. I don't have all the answers to what causes some children more trouble in learning than others, but I don't think you, or Rod, do either. All I ask is that his, and your, advice is offered in context with appropriate qualifiers.

[Faithr]

I have real trouble believing that there are no valid studies on the effectiveness of vision therapy. I'll have to ask my VT about this. So far 4 out of 5 of my children have had reading difficulties and 3 out of the 4 were helped immensely with VT. I've know my Vision therapist for several years. She is a very conscientious and up to date and I admire her careful methodology.

 

How can there be no validated studies? That's just blowing my mind; sorry to be redundant. My VT does quantifiable tests where the kids get faster at reading, she's testing the response of the eyes muscles, etc, etc. You can actually witness my kids eyes working together, where before, they didn't. I can notice that after therapy, how can the scientific community not? My kids eyes went from getting red and watery while reading to being able to read for hours with no discomfort. They stop skipping lines and misreading words. They stopped getting headaches from reading.

 

I'm just baffled by that. But I guess I'll go to my VT for the answers.

[Stacy in NJ]

Ask your VT for peer reviewed studies with a control group.

[Rod Everson]

I didn't ask him to leave. I asked that he qualify his advice with information about his professional interests.

 

I believe you actually stated that I appeared to be a provider. In a sense, I am as I tutor kids in phonics. So far as I know, I've never gotten a single client by posting in these forums however, nor have I sought any.

 

In here, I normally try to limit myself to referring people to my website where they can learn what I have learned about teaching struggling readers over the past decade. In fact, the main reason I created the site was to avoid having to write the same thing over and over. It allows me to direct people to comments that I've taken more time to consider.

 

For example: for one of the most effective ways to eliminate b/d confusion, see Telling b from d.

 

However, I am not a vision therapy provider. I just have the good fortune to have a good relationship with a vision therapy department and see the results they get. About half of my clients (maybe a bit more) come from their patients after they have undergone VT. Working with kids who've undergone vision therapy is a pleasure. They are teachable, sometimes for the first time. They readily absorb what I teach, and "most" of them get out of reading trouble. A few don't, however, and these concern me greatly. Also, I'm not talking about teaching autistic kids, etc. A lot of this still mystifies me.

 

As for Shaywitz, I am as certain as I can possibly be that she is wrong to dismiss vision therapy's effectiveness, and I agree with Claire that she does so out of ignorance. The research dismissing VT is some of the most shoddy research done in academia. Researcher run tests that no developmental OD would rely upon, and then declare that you can't sort out good readers from bad readers based on their vision skills. Most developmental OD's would agree with them; running those tests won't tell you anything useful, but hey, they allow researchers to "claim" that they've measured vision skills. Actually, it's worse than shoddy; it's almost intentionally misleading and is promulgated by people with a phonics ax to grind. (And bear in mind, I'm one of those phonics people myself.)

 

Fortunately, the medical community is starting to run some excellent studies and they are getting the results I would expect (see below). And, with the web, more and more parents are getting the advice they need and vision therapy services are expanding. As they expand, more and more parents have success stories to share, and someday, I'm convinced, this will all have resolved. (By way of example, Faith's comment a bit above mine probably carries as much weight with parents as anything I've written today.)

 

The reason that Shaywitz dismisses VT as a legitimate remediation for reading issues is because within the scientific community there are no, zero, zippo, nada studies that offer peer reviewed and validated research on the effectiveness of VT.

 

If VT worked for your dc, fantastic. I'm glad for you. But offering VT up as an all purpose problem solver is misleading.

 

It's usually risky to say "never" Here's a link to my website write-up on a double-blind, placebo-controlled study on Convergence Insufficiency which is, I believe, a quite-common problem among struggling readers. You'll also find a link to the actual research article from that page. Incidentally, the developmental optometry community has conducted research for going on fifty or so years on the effectiveness (and ineffectiveness) of various aspects of vision therapy procedures. Some of it is quite good, and some of it is, like a lot of research, not so good.

 

I apologize if I appeared to be offering up VT as "an all purpose problem solver." I absolutely believe, however, that in certain cases where a genetic tendency is clearly present, a visit to a developmental optometrist should be one of the first recommendations, not one of the last. They might not find anything, but vision should be at least ruled out. I do try to limit my recommendation to "see a developmental optometrist for an evaluation" rather than saying "your child needs vision therapy." That's up for the optometrist to determine.

 

And, with all that said, there's no doubt some ineffective vision therapy departments out there. I would want to talk to parents of past patients before deciding on a particular provider.

 

Sorry for raising a ruckus. And thanks, Claire for the kind words.

 

Rod Everson

OnTrack Reading

[Rod Everson]

Ask your VT for peer reviewed studies with a control group.

 

I believe you'll find that there's a control group in the one I posted about, Stacy.

 

Now, could I make a similar request? Could you provide me the citation to a study that proves that vision therapy is ineffective? The reason I ask this is that I will read it and attempt to determine whether it does what it purports to do, and if it does not, I will attempt to explain why it is unreliable.

 

Does that sound fair to you? Surely there is a definitive piece of research given how certain the academic/medical researchers are that vision therapy is not effective. For example, what did Shaywitz rely upon? We could start there, as it would probably be the easiest for you to locate.

 

Thanks.

 

Rod Everson

[Stacy in NJ]

Rod, the article that you link to only shows that "patients" that are treated with specific VT therapies improve in specific eye movement "skills". No where in their study do they suggest that this therapy had any effect at all on READING outcomes. Most parents that seek VT do so in hopes of improving their childs reading skill, not to improve some subset of vision skills that may or may not effect reading. Suggesting that an improvement in visual convergency will logically improve reading is a logical fallacy. Show me a study, peer reviewed, that shows that VT provided a measure outcome for READING.

[Stacy in NJ]

Rod, I wouldn't even dream of trying to prove a negative.

[Rod Everson]

I do know one parent whose dd had great difficulty learning to read (no other academic problems) and who got a diagnosis of slow RAN from a Johns Hopkins evaluation. Her IQ and all other evals were very high except for her reading test scores, which were very low. This mother was pretty desperate because JH did not offer any advice on remediation strategies beyond what the mother was already doing. It seemed to me the slow RAN score was out-of-keeping with the other scores in the eval, so I suggested getting a developmental vision eval. My thinking was that RAN could test abnormally low if the girl had undiagnosed visual efficiency deficits. In fact, the developmental vision eval did show severe convergence insufficiency and a few other problems. So, I am in agreement with Rod that a developmental vision evaluation would be a good idea. At the very least it would rule vision out as a contributing factor in your son's reading difficulties.

 

Hi,

 

Just to add a bit on the RAN (Rapid Automatic Naming) issue, you might be interested in learning that one of the tests done in some developmental vision exams consists of the child first reading a list of vertically arranged numbers (to get a baseline) followed by the reading of a list of horizontally arranged numbers. Kids with vision skills issues sometimes perform much more poorly horizontally than vertically because they are essentially seeing double, alternately suppressing, etc., when going across a line of print. Going down a list rarely is as confusing because eyes usually don't end up settling on different levels (though sometimes that happens too.)

 

[There's probably someone in here familiar with the actual test. I've never actually seen it done, but that's my understanding of it.]

 

Anyway, achieving fluency under such conditions is unrealistic until a child's vision skills issues either resolve on their own, or he starts completely suppressing the vision of one eye consistently when doing close work, as has actually happened to some parents I speak with.

 

Rod Everson

[Rod Everson]

Rod, I wouldn't even dream of trying to prove a negative.

 

I assume that this is a reply to my request that you supply a study that convinces you that vision therapy is ineffective. I guess I see your point, though Diane McGuinness had no trouble coming up with a study. Given that it was easily refutable, I think you're ahead of the game taking the logical position you have.

 

I also see your point on the study I cited, and you're correct; it doesn't prove anything about reading levels, per se. I would think most parents, though, would find the reduction in symptoms on the symptoms questionnaire somewhat revealing.

 

You also raise an interesting point. Studies exist showing that struggling readers have visual skills problems. And studies exist showing that vision therapy (and sometimes the correct lense prescriptions) can correct most visual skills problems. Neither of these is the same is saying that fixing the vision skills problem fixes the reading problem, obviously.

 

And, in fact, I believe this is one of the reasons that vision therapy has taken so long to take hold (as I believe it now is.) A child goes to vision therapy, parent spends a bundle, and the child goes back to school and still doesn't read. But VT isn't reading therapy, and one failure can offset many success stories in the educational community when it comes to VT, especially when the same children are usually getting services in school intended to improve their reading specifically. This is one reason I add value to their operation. Parents are told that in certain cases additional reading help is likely to be necessary, and that at a minimum additional testing should be done to see whether their child is advancing sufficiently in reading skill during vision therapy.

 

Where I think I add some value to the discussion is in pointing out that many kids make significant reading gains in vision therapy alone according to the admittedly limited post-testing that I've done, and in adding that I find it relatively easy to work with those who still need help post-VT, but they definitely do exist. I also make follow-up calls to about half the parents (the ones whose children I felt were most likely to need additional reading instruction following VT) and the majority of them are pleased with the way their children are reading compared to when they started VT.

 

And that raises yet another issue. I see no need for phonics instruction for about half the kids I evaluate who then undergo VT. These kids can read, but they get headaches, avoid reading, read haltingly, etc., but they either already understand the phonics or are so young that the school should be able to teach them to read once their vision skills are in place. So, in these cases, reading performance on certain tests would obviously not improve post-VT, but the child would find reading to be a much more agreeable activity.

 

All in all, an interesting evening....not the way I'd planned to spend it, but....

 

G'night all,

 

Rod Everson

[Claire]

The reason that Shaywitz dismisses VT as a legitimate remediation for reading issues is because within the scientific community there are no, zero, zippo, nada studies that offer peer reviewed and validated research on the effectiveness of VT.

 

This is simply not true. Here is one website that lists peer-reviewed research on the effectiveness of vision therapy, and here is another. What is the source of your information? Also, how do you explain the acceptance of orthoptics as a specialty in the field of opthalmology?

 

Let's be clear that we are talking about the effectiveness of vision therapy for vision problems, and that vision problems can interfere with reading. If you have found a vision therapy website that says VT remediates reading, please post it here.

[Claire]

Ask your VT for peer reviewed studies with a control group.

 

I take it you haven't read the Mayo Clinic study? It meets your requirements. Rod has a link to the actual study on his website, but here's a link to an article published by a Mayo Clinic opthalmologist two years ago.

[Claire]

Rod, the article that you link to only shows that "patients" that are treated with specific VT therapies improve in specific eye movement "skills". No where in their study do they suggest that this therapy had any effect at all on READING outcomes. Most parents that seek VT do so in hopes of improving their childs reading skill, not to improve some subset of vision skills that may or may not effect reading. Suggesting that an improvement in visual convergency will logically improve reading is a logical fallacy. Show me a study, peer reviewed, that shows that VT provided a measure outcome for READING.

 

I'm sorry, but I think your requirement for proving a link between vision and reading in a large controlled study are unnecessary (although it would be a very interesting study, were anyone to fund it). Here is an excerpt from the Mayo Clinic article:

 

"Symptoms shared by convergence insufficiency and convergence excess include eyestrain, headaches, blurred vision, double vision, sleepiness and (if reading) trouble remembering what was read. Additional symptoms associated with convergence insufficiency alone include a pulling sensation around the eyes, the rubbing or closing of an eye, words seeming to jump or float across the page, the need to re-read the same line of words, frequent loss of place, general inability to concentrate and short attention span."

 

It is reasonable to think that this combination of problems in a child may create difficulty learning to read, and that correcting the problem is likely to make learning to read easier.

 

Convergence is not evaluated in regular eye exams, so many children with a convergence problem are never diagnosed. That's why it makes sense to get a developmental vision evaluation from a developmental optometrist. No one here says VT will teach a child to read, or that VT takes the place of a good reading program.

[Melissa in Australia]

Melissa and Perry,

 

Both of you should go to the COVD website, put your zip code into the "Locate a Doctor" search box and find the nearest developmental optometrists. Your kids need an evaluation to rule out vision skill deficits that are responsible for reading and other learning problems.

 

I'm reasonably certain that the OD will find that your kids have been fighting vision problems through their school years. The 11-year-old's probably resolved on their own, but not likely in the most desirable manner. It would be pure luck if the 10-year-old had the same thing happen at the same age.

 

Rod Everson

OnTrack Reading

 

hi rod,

I have taken my oldest to an optometrist, and to a speech pathologist( who was the person who encouraged me to home school before I had thought of it) and that is how I found out about his dyslexia, there is a very strong fammily history of it in my fammily, I have it mildly, my brother has it quite badly/strongly, both my uncles have it, my grandfather had it, etc. I my uncles learned to read at age 11-12, my brother could only read fluently 2 years ago at age 30. , by reading I mean reading a novel, and understanding what you have read. :001_smile:

this hasn't held any of them back, one of my uncled is a high school English teacher, the other is the head librarian at one of the biggest universities in Melbourne, and my brother runs an electrical company employing 6 electricians( he is an electrician himself.

In my experience, it is not a visual problem at all. it is the way their brain is working.:D

 

MelissaL

[Stacy in NJ]

Again, this study wasn't intended or conducted to measure how VT effects READING outcomes. It measures specific visual skills before and after VT via tests designed by VT's. Really, they do prelimiary testing, find "inefficiencies", design specfic tests that remediate these inefficiences, and then post test. No where were actual reading measurements taken.

[Rod Everson]

hi rod,

 

I have taken my oldest to an optometrist.....

 

In my experience, it is not a visual problem at all. it is the way their brain is working.

 

MelissaL

 

Hi again, Melissa,

 

But was the optometrist a developmental optometrist? I would be very surprised to learn that this was the case, and as I explain in The Vision Piece, it is very unlikely that your regular optometrist will pick up on the sort of vision problems addressed by vision therapy. They just don't look for them, unfortunately. And with a family history like yours, it's highly likely that most of you are dealing with undiagnosed vision issues that a developmental optometrist would pick up, possibly even in their routine eye exam, since they routinely run a few more tests than other optometrists.

 

As for your experience, I'm not sure how you can conclude that it's not a visual problem. About a third of the brain's cortex is the visual cortex though (I think) so you're probably correct about it being about the way the brain is working. The problem is, it's likely the visual part of the brain.

 

Sorry if I came on too strong yesterday morning, but both your post and Perry's raised issues that I have a lot of experience dealing with and I was in a bit too much of a hurry as I had to be somewhere. At times like that I guess I'm better off just not posting until I have more time.

 

Rod Everson

OnTrack Reading

[Laurie4b]

"On a different note, I have read Shaywitz's book. It has some value in terms of educational research, but it also has major flaws. Shaywitz has no background at all in vision, yet she feels free to dismiss it as a possible contributing factor to reading problems. Why? Because she hasn't bothered to study the research in this area herself. I think it's fine for parents to go to their library and check out the Shaywitz book to read. My bet is that most parents will find that it does not provide enough practical, useful information to make purchase of the book worthwhile."

 

I found the Shaywitz book very practical and helpful in terms of specific & practical information.

 

Sally Shaywitz isn't the only major figure in learning disabilities who dismisses VT for learning problems. I heard Mel Levine say the same thing at a conference. He said in answer to a question specifically about it that there was no research that supported its use for reading difficulties. That view is very widely held among professionals of all types whom I've encountered.

[Rod Everson]

I'll have to read Shaywitz's book again, I guess, but my initial opinion was similar to Claire's.

 

Shaywitz has done some interesting work on brain imaging and reading, I understand, and I thought the book would get more deeply into that work than it did and was disappointed. As I read further, it seemed like she basically threw everything but the proverbial kitchen sink out there for a parent to consider, an approach that I believe is more confusing than helpful, though as I recall she did make the case for a genetic link.

 

On top of that, she had no appreciation for what developmental optometry does for the vision problems that interfere with reading, nor even an appreciation that those vision problems even exist, and so I returned the book to the library and didn't bother purchasing my own copy.

 

I think that's what so frustrating in these discussions. Don't people professionally involved in reading instruction even realize that these sort of vision problems exist? I mean they are measurable by objective means for goodness sake. You can watch some kids' eyes jump as they try to track a swinging ball. You can see that they can't converge to normal distance after just a few trials. This is not normal behavior; it is abnormal behavior. (And, of course, some of the problems are not so apparent, but they are still measurable with objective means.) In fact, if a family OD prescribes pencil push ups, he's telling a parent that a child has a convergence issue. (What he should also now tell them, in light of the study we discussed in this thread, is that he's prescribing an ineffective treatment for the condition, but that's another issue.)

 

And VT fixes these behaviors. Again, parents can see this, and the improvement is measurable by objective means. So the issue becomes, if you have a child struggling with reading, AND he has one or more such demonstrable vision issues, will it help any to fix it? It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that if we read with our eyes, it might be helpful if our eyes are functioning efficiently while we are trying to read.

 

What those of us who have experience with VT are saying is that a) it's a hugely overlooked issue that parents need to become aware of so that they at least realize it could be getting in the way of their child's improvement and b) we have seen cases where it made significant differences in a child's ability to learn to read and/or in their willingness to read. And the more we investigate, the more we find.

 

Do you know what the most common comment made (in one form or another) by parents who finally locate a developmental optometrist? It's "Why is this all such a secret?" It's hardly a case of parents being inundated with false advertising, etc.; they don't even know it exists!

 

Fortunately, the group of people with positive experiences grows daily and the news travels easily across the web in forums such as this. Then, at least the "secret" is out, and parents can make their own choices.

 

Rod Everson

OnTrack Reading

[Melissa in Australia]

Hi again, Melissa,

 

But was the optometrist a developmental optometrist?

 

hi Rod,

thankyou for all your help. I am sorry if I offended you with my comments .the optometrist wasn't a development optometrist, just one that has been very interested in dyslexia, and she did run extra tests, a whole 1/2 hour extra.

I live in a remote place in Australia, the closest developmental optometrist is over 500 km away. just not something that will be happening here!

and no I am not qualified to make the statement that: 'In my experience, it is not a visual problem at all. it is the way their brain is working.:D'

I can only speak from the experience of my family history.

I might be wrong, I am no authority on the brain, it just seems to me to be a word problem; the part of the brain that deals with language, (as we have soo much trouble with spelling, and some problem with spoken language as well, saying the wrong words quite often, often enough to get people wondering what is it you are saying), not a visual problem.

 

MelissaL

[Rod Everson]

Hi Melissa,

 

I wasn't offended at all, so please don't worry about that.

 

I see what you're saying about the word retrieval issue, but ironically, poor spellers who spell phonetically, which is what usually happens, are demonstrating that they can't recall the visual image so they are falling back on the auditory channel instead. In other words, their language center is being used exclusively for spelling instead of calling on support from their visual center. I'm not, however, saying that the word retrieval issue is visual, just as it relates to spelling.

 

After vision therapy, a lot of kids who spell like that have to be convinced that the problem of remembering all the various spelling options isn't an insurmountable one, although at the outset, it certainly seems like it is. Some of the toughest cases, incidentally, are those with both vision and language-based issues. Both need to be addressed for a child to be comfortable with print. In fact, some of my toughest clients are those with poor blending skills. They just don't easily deal with the sounds in words and often get the wrong result when blending sounds or chunks. These are also usually kids who have little sense of rhyme, which I would suspect might be the case in your family, though maybe not.

 

As for the nearest vision therapy department being hours away, that's one of the biggest frustrations I run into when discussing VT as an option. The next one is expense and then there's always the issue of whether a particular VT department is doing effective therapy.

 

It sounds like you're convinced there's no vision problems running in your family, and since I've got no stake in convincing you otherwise, so I'll let it rest. (I'm not one to use smilies...here's as close as I get....*s*)

 

Have a nice day.

 

Rod Everson

OnTrack Reading

[Melissa in Australia]

Hi Melissa,

 

.

 

I see what you're saying about the word retrieval issue, but ironically, poor spellers who spell phonetically, which is what usually happens, are demonstrating that they can't recall the visual image so they are falling back on the auditory channel instead. In other words, their language center is being used exclusively for spelling instead of calling on support from their visual center. I'm not, however, saying that the word retrieval issue is visual, just as it relates to spelling.

 

After vision therapy, a lot of kids who spell like that have to be convinced that the problem of remembering all the various spelling options isn't an insurmountable one, although at the outset, it certainly seems like it is. Some of the toughest cases, incidentally, are those with both vision and language-based issues. Both need to be addressed for a child to be comfortable with print. In fact, some of my toughest clients are those with poor blending skills. They just don't easily deal with the sounds in words and often get the wrong result when blending sounds or chunks. These are also usually kids who have little sense of rhyme, which I would suspect might be the case in your family, though maybe not.

 

 

Have a nice day.

 

Rod Everson

OnTrack Reading

 

what you have described is exactly what my family has. what to do?

thankyou

MelissaL