I found our wonder VT doctor through the COVD website. I also found one I didn't like too much through there. When you talk to some please ask them how much is the eval and does that price cover testing him for perceptual issues if they think he needs to be tested for that? Also ask if there are built in progress evaluations scheduled with VT if they feel like he needs it.

I think it's time to move on with an NP eval. We were doing our lesson on letter e yesterday and in dictation he spelled every word with an e. "did" was "ben" huh? and he didn't know why it's wrong. Couldn't wrap his mind around the word "not" even through he's been very good in identifying the short o sound. He inserted every vowel before hitting the right one. He is just guessing sometimes, like his mind forgot every thing he learned. Last VT appointment was canceled, so I haven't been able to run by her the blocking out one eye during math. Today he sees her again. So my next questions are, do NPs have a way to ID that some issues are visual and some are not? I mean with it skew the results to have him get an eval before graduating VT? And I simply can't afford a private eval at the moment. It's a few thousand dollars isn't it? What is is it like to go through the school disctrict? What kind of experience has that been if you've gone that route?

Wow, I messed up today. I had boston market cornbread and felt the immediate overload. Looked it up and it has 12 grams of sugar! I'm guessing it's all added sugar, so that's 1/2 of the limit in added sugar for one day. Hmmm....

What brand of stevia do you use? I always found it to have a metallic taste. A friend grows it and uses the fresh leaves. She says this is the only way to get away from that taste.

thanks Well, I'm Muslim. I have no holidays this time of year. Next food related holiday is in the summer for me. Exercise is another challenge. My joints flare up with even low impact. So I started walking and going on the treadmill and got plantar fasciitis. Have been healing from that for months now. I think as someone mentioned no sugar will help my joints and I can start out slow.

just processed sugar I love the spreadable raw honey we get from the flea market. That is healthy and I will use it as a sub when cooking or baking. I am one of those people if the cookies are in the house, I can't stop eating them. So I don't know how much I would bake even anyway.

8 months is very impressive. I can see not wanting sweets after not having them for so long. Thanks! I'll see if the library has it :)

Has anyone here quit eating added sugar for good and can share some tips? I've been a total sugar junkie my whole life and I feel like it's time to break up. I watched Fed Up and it was a real eye opener. I'm worried about insulin resistance too. Been on an SSRI for a few years and it seems that I put on weight so much easier now, especially with sweets.

No OT eval yet. I can't budget any more evals or therapy at the moment. We do finally have health insurance, well the kids not me and dh. So hopefully if we need it, it's something we could do through insurance. Well today was much better with math. I cut out half the repetitive problems, did half of the rest orally and the rest on the white board. No complaints. It cut our time down so much I might try to sneak in cursive with him on those days later in the day. p/q confusion is still an issue and that should help with that. I haven't seen him flip a d upside down into a q in a while so maybe some progress is being made. We also got a mini trampoline this week. The therapist has one in her office and he loves it. It helps get the wiggles out and he does his circle line jump homework on it too.

I feel bad for posting it as I obviously didn't look too much into it or think about the implications. I wonder how the researchers would defend it, maybe I will post in the group I am on to explain their methods and why.

He has been making progress. He has progress evals scheduled for every 13 weeks and the VT doc said Vt would take about 9 months. At his first eval he has shown improvement in depth perception and got up to age level on some other test. I think it was reading in a column. After this eval, he started working both eyes together, no more patching. She said this is when we would really see him improve with reading. His tracking and tracing homework just began to be timed this week, so I guess she feels he is ready to start picking up the pace. I'm very happy with his doctor, so I'm not worried about how well the therapy is planned out. I guess I'm wondering if he is having a harder time than he should and how to make it go smoother. I am getting the bigger picture with him. Close work is just going to be a challenge for some time. Last year, he had a subscription to AhaScience and AhaMath. I need something like this again where he can just watch and listen and absorb. He retains a lot this way.

Sorry, I should have put the locations: "The CITT-ART study is being conducted at 8 pediatric eye care centers across the United States. The study is funded by the National Eye Institute, which is part of the National Institutes of Health. About 325 children will take part in this study." Southern California College of Optometry at Marshall B Ketchum University Pennsylvania College of Optometry at Salus University The Ohio State University College of Optometry NOVA Southeastern University College of Optometry University of Alabama School of Optometry State University of New York College of Optometry Akron Childrens Hospital Bascom Palmer Eye Institute I think it did say that half the participants will be given a "placebo" VT treatment, which I think kind of stinks. But if this help validate VT and maybe insurances will start covering it more, and someone out there can get free VT for 16 weeks, I thought it was worth sharing.

I am sharing this from a vision therapy group I follow on facebook (Vision Therapy patients unite) If your child has 20/20 eyesight, yet gets headaches, sees double and blur, squints or closes one eye and have difficulty reading, he/she may have an undiagnosed condition called Convergence Insufficiency (CI). Other symptoms include short attention span, fatigue and even bad grades. Researchers are now looking for over 300 children with CI to participate in a clinical trial to see if vision therapy can help with reading and attention. To see if your child is a candidate, check out www.citt-art.com ‪

Thanks for all the great replies. I do have The Writer's Jungle. I guess I will take some time to try and work through that before deciding to outsource. He seems motivated with online classes to stay up to date with assignments, and I would rather have someone else give him feedback.

Setting it up the night before is a great idea. We are using CLE and there is so much repetition. I'm sure I could skip some problems and have it not be an issue too.

We are in our 20th week now of vision therapy. DS asked to do one lesson a day, instead of doing half of each every day. We are just focusing on math and reading right now. I notice after about 15 minutes of math, when we are just about done anyway, he says he is tired of writing and starts covering one eye and his eyes are watering. Does that seem normal for how long we have been doing VT now? Of course everyone is different. But wondering based on other's VT experience when they seem to develop a bit more endurance? Thanks :)

good idea. I'll try it and see if it's the right angle.

Great, thanks for the replies. I think I will go with it using Human Odyssey instead.

Do you find Human Odyssey to be balanced? We used to do K12 History through the PS and he liked it a lot.

I had History Odyssey on my list for ds11 for a while. I just read reviews on the required book, The Story of Mankind that it is very orientalist and even racist. So I am questioning the whole course then. I I would like something that is not based on just a western worldview, is literature based or at least makes excellent recommendations, and is structured without being overwhelming. Please share if you have something to recommend.

A VT group I follow on facebook posted about using a slant board and shared this article: http://www.thevisiontherapycenter.com/discovering-vision-therapy/bid/83804/Why-Your-Child-Should-Use-a-Slant-Board-for-Writing It keeps work at a 22 degree angle which is supposed to be better. passing along in case, like me, you hadn't heard of this before. I see my son's VT doc uses this with him, so looking around for one Has anyone made their own, seems easy enough. I do like this one: http://www.visualedgesb.com/products/slant-boards.html

Thank Rod, The order of introducing letters is how they are introduced in Recipe for Reading. I have made sure he starts d with the c shape and the b as a line. I like this idea of asking him to notice which shape his lips are making. That's not something we've been doing and it may help.

My DS11 doesn't like to write. Brave Writer seems good and I like the idea of outsourcing writing for a little bit, just to give us a boost. The $$ is a little steep for me, so I'd love to hear if you tried it out and thought it was amazing or just not worth the cost... Thanks

Thank you for all the additional replies. I can say he is a much happier child since we started VT. The anxiety level has gone down a lot. I really don't see much from him now and that is a big relief. The past few weeks I have seen improvement with him. He just started this month playing the Wii with his brothers. He said that before that certain games were "too 3D". His handwriting is getting smoother and he goes through the warm up drills in Recipe for Reading pretty quickly now. So I'm relaxing a bit, finally! We are stuck a bit on identifying right and left. I mentioned to the VT that we just introduced "b" and he is confusing b and d in print and reading. She said it is because of right/left confusion. So we have lots of homework for that. I do notice towards the end of his reading lesson he starts to read a few words backwards. I'm chalking this up to his eyes are getting tired and doing all the things we are in VT for. He no longer has trouble identifying the sounds letters make and I'm guessing it's because he can actually see what letter it is! Really, this stuff is so confusing until you just get started on fixing it and either see results or don't.

I don't have any info on seizures, but I agree that switch the math program would help. My son hated MM ( I loved it) and now we are trying out CLE and like it much better.