does this sound ok? vision therapy

[caedmyn]

I made an appt for DS8 to get a developmental vision screening.  They said if he needs vision therapy they do an at-home program where they give you exercises to do at home and have him come back for follow-ups every 2-3 months.  Does that sound ok?  I think this is the only option for vision therapy in the area.

[MistyMountain]

I am doing an option similar to that but I go once a month. It works for me personally because going more often would be too costly but I can at least see them and get opinions of progress and when to move on for the exercises for retained reflexes.

[Terabith]

We had terrible results with a program like that, and my daughter developed fell blown ptsd. But she's weird. I'm sure it works for many families.

[PeterPan]

Sounds like a place that doesn't do VT very much. And you should do work on retained primitive reflexes BEFORE vt, not after. 

 

With such a loose approach to therapy, they aren't expecting much for results and therefore don't have to have a high bar for recommending it. (will be good, let's do it)  With all the things you have on your plate, I would think you would want something that is planning on accomplishing more with your time. Our place would do more in one session (one hour) than I could get done in a WEEK of homework with her. But that was in a place that does a LOT of VT, that keeps multiple full-time therapists, that sends their people out for workshops and extra training, etc. They were planning on getting results, and you saw results in 1-2 months, like major results.

Edited January 6, 2017 by OhElizabeth

[OneStepAtATime]

I'm going to be blunt.  I don't think this will work for your situation.  VT can be exhausting.  The child can get very fatigued, very discouraged, it can cause headaches, the kid can get very grumpy, etc.  And this will be primarily on your shoulders.  You will need to be exceedingly patient and very consistent and dedicated and firm and very encouraging and supportive and understanding and also be flexible in letting go of some of the academic requirements while they go through it.  You already have some trouble with this child cooperating, right?  Maybe I am mis-remembering.  Honestly, if you think Barton is hard to implement, wait until you try Vision Therapy without a professional doing most of the work.  

 

To clarify, I know VT can work and work well.  And some have found the type of program that you describe to be worthwhile.  I'm not saying it doesn't work for people.  I'm just saying that if you have a kid that is hard to teach, may be very resistant, etc.  this could cause a lot of issues between the two of you.

[PeterPan]

It's more than that. They're either using computer work (not as effective) or not providing enough support (ie. not anticipating doing anything fatiguing enough to need support). If you're really working hard, you're going to have questions and hills you run into. I regularly tell people to do monthly with lots of homework if they need to stretch their finances. I'm cool with that. But for a provider to suggest even longer spacing is odd, really odd.

[kbutton]

I made an appt for DS8 to get a developmental vision screening.  They said if he needs vision therapy they do an at-home program where they give you exercises to do at home and have him come back for follow-ups every 2-3 months.  Does that sound ok?  I think this is the only option for vision therapy in the area.

 

Do you know what is included in the program, what those exercises do, and then what kind of support you will get (including if you wanted to come in more often)? I'm thinking that you live pretty rurally, IIRC. 

 

I personally found VT to make sense when I had things demonstrated to me in office. If I could watch a video of those sorts of things and ask questions, I would probably be fine, but having an office visit where the therapist tailors things to the child (including swapping out similar activities if one is not tolerated very well) is a really big help. 

 

If VT doesn't make sense to you (after having some exercises demonstrated and having a chance to ask questions about what should be happening/not happening), then it would definitely be a caution in my book to proceed carefully. While VT made a lot of sense to me, there are other therapies my kids have needed where I either didn't quite get it, or I just didn't have the ability to drill down to the details and feel comfortable making judgment calls while implementing it at home. 

[MistyMountain]

2 or 3 months is a long time but monthly for me is working fine. I can ask questions and they talk me through what may happen and give calls to see how things are going. For the rythmic exercises you have to do them daily anyway and they are not that hard to learn with someone showing you them. I have not run into anything difficult yet. What are some of the stuff that kids have gotten fatigued or grumpy from? I know it can with the rythmic exercises.

Edited January 7, 2017 by MistyMountain

[kbutton]

2 or 3 months is a long time but monthly for me is working fine. I can ask questions and they talk me through what may happen and give calls to see how things are going. For the rythmic exercises you have to do them daily anyway and they are not that hard to learn with someone showing you them. I have not run into anything difficult yet. What are some of the stuff that kids have gotten fatigued or grumpy from? I know it can with the rythmic exercises.

 

Both my kids did VT, and both grumbled for different reasons (and had different VT tasks). My older one would grumble because the eye exercises were fatiguing, and he would feel it. They were uncomfortable. We always did five days of homework. Day 1 would be okay, day 2 would be awful, Day 3 would kind of click, and Days 4 and 5 were "This is easy." 

 

Second DS just whined about having to do any of it. He was a bit fatigued, but he has fewer convergence issues, so his fatigue was more in the body work exercises. A similar pattern emerged with the homework, but it came out with different exercises. This child is easily discouraged and needs a bit of petting, honestly, and the therapist recognized that. She made sure that if she could switch to a better perceived activity at all, then she did so.

 

I have not experienced the kind of fatigue you'd get from VT firsthand, but I imagine it's annoying because you use your eyes for everything. It's not like if your legs are tired, and you can sit for a few minutes. Resting your eyes is a bit trickier unless you are sleeping or staying still while you keep them closed.  

[caedmyn]

Do you know what is included in the program, what those exercises do, and then what kind of support you will get (including if you wanted to come in more often)? I'm thinking that you live pretty rurally, IIRC. 

 

I personally found VT to make sense when I had things demonstrated to me in office. If I could watch a video of those sorts of things and ask questions, I would probably be fine, but having an office visit where the therapist tailors things to the child (including swapping out similar activities if one is not tolerated very well) is a really big help. 

 

If VT doesn't make sense to you (after having some exercises demonstrated and having a chance to ask questions about what should be happening/not happening), then it would definitely be a caution in my book to proceed carefully. While VT made a lot of sense to me, there are other therapies my kids have needed where I either didn't quite get it, or I just didn't have the ability to drill down to the details and feel comfortable making judgment calls while implementing it at home. 

 

I don't know much about it at all.  I don't even know what types of questions to ask about it, or what I should be looking for in a program.  We are not rural, actually in a good-size city (for here), but there isn't much of anything useful here.

 

I'm going to be blunt.  I don't think this will work for your situation.  VT can be exhausting.  The child can get very fatigued, very discouraged, it can cause headaches, the kid can get very grumpy, etc.  And this will be primarily on your shoulders.  You will need to be exceedingly patient and very consistent and dedicated and firm and very encouraging and supportive and understanding and also be flexible in letting go of some of the academic requirements while they go through it.  You already have some trouble with this child cooperating, right?  Maybe I am mis-remembering.  Honestly, if you think Barton is hard to implement, wait until you try Vision Therapy without a professional doing most of the work.  

 

To clarify, I know VT can work and work well.  And some have found the type of program that you describe to be worthwhile.  I'm not saying it doesn't work for people.  I'm just saying that if you have a kid that is hard to teach, may be very resistant, etc.  this could cause a lot of issues between the two of you.

 

I think it might be my 6 YO you are thinking of of that doesn't like to cooperate.  8 YO is difficult because he is so ADHD, but usually not terribly uncooperative, except for that first day of Barton, and he had some legitimate complaints there (that fingerspelling hurt my hand too at first, so I really can't blame him for saying it hurt and refusing to do it).  If it is causes headaches, though, probably DH is the only one who could get him to do it.  I doubt somebody at a vision therapy place would be able to.  

Sounds like a place that doesn't do VT very much. And you should do work on retained primitive reflexes BEFORE vt, not after. 

 

With such a loose approach to therapy, they aren't expecting much for results and therefore don't have to have a high bar for recommending it. (will be good, let's do it)  With all the things you have on your plate, I would think you would want something that is planning on accomplishing more with your time. Our place would do more in one session (one hour) than I could get done in a WEEK of homework with her. But that was in a place that does a LOT of VT, that keeps multiple full-time therapists, that sends their people out for workshops and extra training, etc. They were planning on getting results, and you saw results in 1-2 months, like major results.

 

But that isn't available here.  It's this or nothing as far as I can tell.  Even if we went someplace "better", it would be at least 1.5 hours away, or more likely 3 hours (because those are the nearest decent-size cities), and it wouldn't be feasible to travel like that more than every 3-4 weeks, so it'd end up being the same thing with me doing everything.

 

Anyway, it doesn't really matter at this point because it doesn't look like DH is going to agree to him getting the screening in the first place.

[OneStepAtATime]

I don't know much about it at all.  I don't even know what types of questions to ask about it, or what I should be looking for in a program.  We are not rural, actually in a good-size city (for here), but there isn't much of anything useful here.

 

 

I think it might be my 6 YO you are thinking of of that doesn't like to cooperate.  8 YO is difficult because he is so ADHD, but usually not terribly uncooperative, except for that first day of Barton, and he had some legitimate complaints there (that fingerspelling hurt my hand too at first, so I really can't blame him for saying it hurt and refusing to do it).  If it is causes headaches, though, probably DH is the only one who could get him to do it.  I doubt somebody at a vision therapy place would be able to.  

 

But that isn't available here.  It's this or nothing as far as I can tell.  Even if we went someplace "better", it would be at least 1.5 hours away, or more likely 3 hours (because those are the nearest decent-size cities), and it wouldn't be feasible to travel like that more than every 3-4 weeks, so it'd end up being the same thing with me doing everything.

 

Anyway, it doesn't really matter at this point because it doesn't look like DH is going to agree to him getting the screening in the first place.

:grouphug:  :grouphug:  :grouphug: