Poll: What was your experience with vision therapy?

[LizzyBee]

If you've done vision therapy, what kind of results did you see? It would be really helpful if you would post and tell us which choice you picked in the poll and the type and severity of your child's symptoms.

 

I've never created a poll before, so give me a few minutes to get it up and running.

[VinNY]

We have done two months of therapy (2x a week) and daily exercises on days not at therapy, so far. My dtr is now able to read multisyllabic words, read longer passages (she was exhausted with Bob Books) and now can read from I See Sam AR1 level (yeah on book 11). We saw this change by Christmas time. She is now in 2nd grade math. We have a ways to go ..he has her cleaning up tracking and convergence issues. We are working on peripheral issues.. and I believe they are doing memory exercises with her. I will let you know come spring time the final verdict. I don't expect miracles, just to get her a 1 1/2 years behind grade level instead of 3.

 

I didn't hesitate to do this because I was warned when she was 6 that she would need VT by an OT, the school psych said she would benefit because these weaknesses came up with her WISC score etc.

[peacefully]

.

[KC in KS]

He was just one of those kids who didn't like to read, never really got into school. As I started reading on homeschoolish stuff, I started wondering if he perhaps had undiagnosed dyslexia, so we started digging. Eventually it turned out to be a vision problem, and he went through a year of vision therapy.

 

Did it help? Was it worth the money? ABSOLUTELY!

 

First, DH uses the skills he learned every single day. He had one doc tell him he should have a career no more visually taxing than painting the sides of barns. :lol: Instead, he's a high level computer guy, spending 10 -12 hours a day at his computer. Need I tell you which job pays better? ;)

 

Second, and to me, most importantly, learning that there was something wrong with his vision resolved a very deep-seated feeling of inadequacy. He'd always assumed he didn't read well/easily because he just didn't measure up to the other kids. Discovering the cause, doing something about it, did wonders for his sense of self-worth.

 

I can't recommend vision therapy highly enough!

[Guest]

Where oh where is "other" when you need it?

 

We had two rounds of VT with different places, and the results were very different.

 

Round 1, when dd was eight, was almost exclusively paper-based, having to do with circling letters, changing focus from small to fine print, etc. The only reali issues they worked on were changing focus and convergence. I did not notice any real results.

 

Round 2, when dd was 11, was with a sports vision therapist who has all kinds of certification and is a world-known speaker in the field. He discovered that dd was physically blocking the vision in one eye -- and to my astonishment I actually watched her do this in one of the evaluations -- and as a result was seeing in 2-D with little to no depth perception. She also could not see out of her eyes peripherally without turning her whole head. There were a host of other issues uncovered, too, such as problems coordinating eye-hand movement.

 

With this therapy, hardly any of which was done sitting down with pencil or at a computer, we saw lots of changes. In three weeks dd could throw, catch, and dodge a ball. She stopped running into things around the house so much. By the end of therapy she was improving in horseback riding because she could use her peripheral and depth vision. And a few months later, she went from needing oversize print to reading the print in regular adult paperbacks.

 

I think the eventual improvement in her handwriting that we saw came from a combination of this therapy and all the core and fine motor work involved in riding and working at the stables. I wouldn't attribute that entirely to VT.

[PeterPan]

Before VT dd wouldn't read small print books and had headaches with schoolwork that had increased dramatically when we tried reading glasses. Once we got into the vision therapy we started uncovering all kinds of other problems. Her eyes weren't converging and focusing properly, but she's also low tone, which compounds it. And after years of that, you realize the visual processing skills don't develop properly. And she had the issues with suppression and depth perception that Karen talked about. What was interesting was to see things improve that we hadn't REALIZED were connected to her eyes. She became able to catch balls. She stopped whamming into things and hurting herself all the time. (It used to be a daily occurrence around here, and she often had bruises she couldn't account for.) Her handwriting improved IMMENSELY. Her reading took off, faster than ever and with no issues of font size. She can do puzzles now. She'll color, something she would NOT do before, AT ALL. Oh, and no headaches.

 

I think some people doing VT are better than others. Not only that, but the VT really has to engage the awareness of the dc. It's not like it's something the doc does to the dc. It's what the dc does to himself as he learns how to use his eyes and how to make his body do what it needs to. And as they do the tasks over and over the brain develops new pathways and learns how. My dd can cross her eyes now, which she never could before. Might seem like a small thing, but it was one of those clues of convergence issues that we didn't even realize, kwim? But to get it to the point of automaticity, the point where she could do it without supports (a finger, etc.), she had to do it OVER AND OVER. That's the brain rewiring part.

 

For us the whole thing was amazing. Oh, and a happy side effect? As they got into the visual processing side they started introducing distractions, ramping up the working memory, etc., so that her executive functions improved a tad. They're not perfect, mercy, but she started remembering to feed the dog!!! After 10 years of being reminded, she suddenly, out of the blue, started remembering! It was stunning. Our VT place does PACE cognitive therapy, which works on working memory, and they had been integrating some of those skills and worksheets into it.

 

I think if you get a really good VT place, you can't go wrong.

[LizzyBee]

When I started looking into solutions for my dyslexic dd a couple years ago, I read story after story of people spending a couple thousand $$ on VT with no discernable results. This was the norm here on these boards as well as a couple of yahoo groups I participate in. A few months ago, it seemed like the tide turned and VT is all the rage here on the boards.

 

My dd9 has some serious auditory processing deficits. Over the past two years, they've improved, but the audiologist told us that because of the type of APD she has, she will always have it. However, her phonological awareness is fully remediated. (Yay for LiPS and Barton!!!) She also had ST from ages 3-9 and OT for about 2 years for SPD and fine motor deficits. Her OT included Interactive Metronome and Therapeutic Listening Program. She is diagnosed with poor working memory, but we've seen huge improvements there. She didn't like listening to audio books because with her APD and receptive language delays, she would get lost and not understand the story. However, that changed within the past couple of months and she now listens to books constantly with very good comprehension and retention.

 

DD has had her visual processing evaluated by an OT and by a developmental optometrist. She scored within the normal range on everything on one test or the other, but some of the scores were sort of flip-flopped. In other words, her scores were normal in some areas on both sets of tests, but each evaluation showed at least one area of weakness, but not necessarily the same thing. Nevertheless, the opt. recommended 9 months of therapy.

 

We elected not to do VT for several reasons:

1. DD scored within normal ranges in every area of visual processing on at least one evaluation.

2. The opt. report said that dd said she doesn't like to read. I was with her when the opt. tried to get her to say that, but she didn't say it.

3. The opt. report included errors of logic. In one category, the test scores were at the 50th and 48th percentile, but the report said that dd was 2 years below age-level in that category. Since 50th percentile is average, it certainly doesn't equate to being 2 years behind.

4. The report said that the goal of therapy was to get dd to a certain level which is equivalent to 2 years above age-level. IMO, that is an attempt to rip off parents who are desperate to help their kids with LDs. If insurance covered VT, they would pay to get kids up to the 18th percentile, the low end of the normal range. No way would insurance pay to get kids 2 years above average.

5. I wouldn't have kept dd out of therapy just for this, but I was very irritated that the opt. directed her report to our speech therapist instead of dh and me. First, our ST does not make medical decisions for our dd, and second, we are not too stupid to understand the report.

6. Unrelated to the opt or her report: There is a theory that visual processing, tracking, etc. lag behind in dyslexic kids because they are not reading at the same age as other kids, but when they start reading, those skills will develop and catch up. Case in point: One woman I know only online could not afford both OG curriculum and VT. She opted for OG even though her dd had very poor scores from her dev. opt. evaluation. After 3 years of OG, they had a follow-up evaluation and all of her dd's scores were completely normal.

7. I have noticed that many VT success stories mention kids who walk into furniture, bump into walls, and that sort of thing. My dd was pretty uncoordinated before she had OT, but now, for example, she is a great little basketball player who can shoot, dribble, and steal the ball well. Even before OT, I wouldn't say she cut corners short or walked into furniture; but it took awhile for her to learn to do jumping jacks, march in place in a cross pattern, etc. She has no trouble staying on the lines when she writes and her handwriting is very legible, although it did take her a long time to develop neat handwriting.

 

All that said, even though dd's lack of phonological awareness has been remediated, she still tires very quickly when reading. She has mentioned recently that sometimes one eye goes out of focus but it goes back into focus when she hits it, and sometimes the words on the page seem to move. I just bought some See N Read markers, and I'll be interested to see whether that helps with the words "moving."

 

So anyway, we've done a lot of therapy + OG instruction, and I hoped dd's reading would have progressed a little better than it has. So now I'm wondering if we should reconsider VT. OTOH, she has made such incredible progress in many areas in the past year, and maybe I just need to be a little more patient in waiting for all of that to translate into better reading skills. It took a small bit of handwriting practice every day for several years to get her writing to where it is now. And I know reading is the same way - baby steps over a long period of time. I guess I'm just feeling a little torn, impatient, and afraid of missing something. I've discussed it a little with dh. He was with dd for more of the VT evaluation than I was, and he was very unimpressed and does not want to pursue VT. I am not inclined to push the issue since I'm not convinced dd needs VT, but I'm struggling with that nagging fear that dd does need VT. I posted the poll to help me sort out my thoughts about VT.

 

ETA: I think this is the longest post I've ever written! :-)

Edited January 16, 2011 by LizzyBee

[PeterPan]

Lizzy, you have a lot of issues there to sort through! First, how did you find this particular dev. opt? Is he a fellow with COVD or did he come highly recommended? They are NOT all equal, and frankly I would be concerned too, given what you described. When we left our dev. opt. evaluation, we had NO confusion about what our problems were, what she needed, or how they could help. They had demonstrated each problem very clearly using eye tools (nifty, weird-looking gadgets), a computer with infrared goggles that tracked her eye movements when reading, etc. Like I said, we were VERY certain we were on the right track when we left. Just that fact that you aren't to me is a sign of something amiss. Two, I don't like to hear *9 months*. Perhaps we were spoiled by our experience? Our VT place laid out exactly what would be covered in each block (4 weeks) of therapy, had a therapy notebook of tasks you'd be working through (which is why they could predict it), and said 3-4 months. We worked our buts off, but we got through all the focusing, convergence, etc. issues in 3 months. So to me 9 months means either they're taking a really slow pace or they're assessing her function (and ability to improve) as very, very poor, which doesn't fit with what you're saying.

 

Now about percentiles and ages. Did they give you a copy of the results? Mercy, ask for it. They gave me a photocopy of ours. I too remember thinking it strange that percentiles and age ranges didn't match up. They don't, so that to me is not an issue. I also don't buy your argument about 18% being the goal. Mercy, these kids HAVE to go higher. Our VT place made no bones about the fact that they would take these kids up higher than the norm, simply because there's GOING to be a bit of a slip possible. You want a cushion. You want her to have a vision skills pad to make up for the difficulties. So that too is normal.

 

Now I think you're unintentionally confusing the eyeball portion of vision (visual teaming, convergence, focusing, all those fancy words) with visual perception which is what the BRAIN does with the eyes. Look back at those test results. They were probably all visual PERCEPTION, not the actual vision itself. Our VT place breaks therapy into stages. First they were on the eye teaming, focusing, convergence, etc., THEN they retest the perception and consider therapy for that. You are correct, and our place said this repeatedly, that some kids' visual perception issues will resolve just by improving the eyeball side of things. That's why our place retests (as yours might), because it CAN improve. But that doesn't mean it will on everyone. It didn't on my dd. She needed specific work.

 

Now, on the visual perception end of things, indeed a lot of what they're doing in therapy are things you could/would do at home if you knew how, knew the benefit, etc. They up the ante and get a lot more done. In one month of therapy working on the perception end of things my dd jumped 30+% in most categories. That is ASTOUNDING.

 

Now I'm thinking about this some more. Maybe your VT doc meant 9 months *total*?? I don't know, I'd ask for a further breakdown. Our insurance covered one block (month) of the therapy that was working on specific things and none of the rest. So to say what insurance may or may not cover is sort of thin air. The insurance company doesn't care if your dc can see with depth perception or distinguish figure and ground, etc., because those don't land them in the hospital. The only part they cared about was what related directly to eyeball function and headaches. But parents care, because we see how these skills impact their lives.

 

When I started, I didn't realize how many areas her vision problems were affecting. I've read lots of the success stories at our VT place, and nobody's situation was exactly the same, kwim? Your dd has done lots of OT working on sensory issues. That means her proprioception (sense of self in space, body awareness) is much higher. She may not be bumping into things because she is compensating. I can play basketball too, but that doesn't mean I have proper depth perception or peripheral vision. (I don't.) Our brains compensate and create sort of a faux depth perception. My dd actually fell MORE for a while, because the two methods were competing. So my guess is what's throwing you is the compensation skills she has due to her improvements on the OT side.

 

Just the fact that you have two professionals saying you ought to look into vision problems to me is a sign. But more importantly, I'd look at the physical symptoms. Your dd is describing physical issues with her vision. Those are things that a good VT doc should be able to explain. She's not describing visual processing problems. She's describing actual vision problems. I think you should find a new VT doc, someone you have more confidence in, and get her re-evaluated. Or email this one and talk with him, asking him to explain the parts you missed. I know the whole reading thing. They did that with my dd too. The real issue is whether you're convinced that he has identified specific vision problems going on (which should have specific words) and whether he has an efficient, effective treatment plan. Did he give you a write-up yet, a written evaluation? Our place did. It took a while, but they did. Would this doc be doing the VT himself, or does he have a large staff with full-time therapists?

 

It definitely sounds like you have a vision issue, but you have a lot of red flags with this particular doc. He has quirked you with how he handles things (the whole SLP issue), he has been vague about identifying the problems, and he has offered vague, long-term therapy recommendations. It's a LOT of money to do VT. With the right doc it can be amazing. But you need to be sure you have the right doc. They're NOT all equal. Was this guy on COVD? Is he a fellow? Did he come recommended? Does he have a staff of therapists? Are they COVD certified?

[peacefully]

.

[LizzyBee]

OhElizabeth and Yllek,

 

The dev opt we went to is listed as a FCOVD on the COVD website. Is that a fellow? We went to her because she was the only one in our area. Her office was about an hour's drive away, but she has moved a little bit closer since then. The COVD website now lists 2 more within a 50 miles radius of us.

 

Our SLP recommended her because her dd had reading issues and benefited from VT, but she is the only professional that has ever referred us to a dev opt. One of our OTs did some visual perceptual testing, but didn't refer us for VT. We did discuss VT, and she said she would refer us if she felt that testing for VT was warranted.

 

This week is the first time she has ever told me the letters on the page seemed to be moving. I have asked about this in the past and she has always said no. Her fatigue is brain fatigue, not eye fatigue, but could be caused by the difficulty of auditory and/or visual processing. She doesn't rub her eyes, they don't water, and they don't get red when she reads.

 

I do have a written report and I went and pulled it out. The recommended therapy was 9 months, 1 weekly session in her office and 15-20 minutes of daily homework.

 

Her visual acuity is 20/20, but the opt did recommend glasses to take some stress off dd's eyes. However, dd rarely wears them because they don't really make reading any easier.

 

She tested below average (10-15th percentiles) on the eye movement test based on calling out numbers from vertical and horizontal arrays. The report says that dd moves her head from side to side instead of her eyes, but this is not something I've ever observed when she reads at home.

 

For fixations she scored 171, compared to a norm of 155 for her age. Regressions were 49, norm is 35. Regression/fixations was 29% and should be 20% or less. Saccades in return sweeps was 1.9, compared to norm of no more than 2.

 

The report says she has accomodative infacility which will cause difficulty copying. But dd has no problem copying from paper or a white board on the wall.

 

The report says she has convergence excess. When I first got the report and googled convergence, I found lots of information saying that VT is needed for convergence insufficiency, but no sites that said VT is need for convergence excess. This condition is supposed to make it difficult for her to make accurate spatial judgments, but even before OT, she didn't walk into walls and furniture and that sort of thing.

 

On directional concepts, she was about a year below age level. However, she is better at identifying left and right than I, and she made no reversals in her writing, putting her at the 68th percentile for that task. She used to sometimes read words backwards (was/saw) but she hasn't done this in a long time.

 

VMI:

The report says her performance on the Wold Sentence Copy is not grade appropriate, rated at 7 yrs 11 mos. That was less than 6 months discrepancy at the time. She copied 36 letters in 60 seconds, and norm for her age at the time is 40. Her pencil grip and handwriting have improved since then, so I'd be surprised if she scored below age level if tested now.

 

On the Beery Test of VMI, she scored at 9 yrs, 0 months, which was 8 months above her age.

 

On the Detroit Motor Speed and Precision Test, she scored 8 years, 9 months on both speed and precision; again, this is above her age at the time.

 

Her visual perceptual scores were:

Visual Discrimination: 61st percentile

Visual Spatial Relations: 23rd percentile (98th when tested by the OT)

Visual Form Constancy: 7th percentile (37th when tested by the OT)

Visual Figure Ground: 87th percentile (25th when tested by the OT)

Visual Closure: 37th percentile (2nd when tested by the OT, and we did some work on that)

 

Monroe III Visual Memory Test:

Visual memory 8 yrs 2 mos, 47th percentile

Visual sequential memory 8 yrs 5 mos, 53rd percentile

Average of the two above tests 5 years 6 months ??????????????

 

The report also says that dd expends too much effort keeping her place. I disagree with this. She does not have to use her fingers or a bookmark to keep her place. She does expend a lot of effort to read, but it's in the sounding out of the words, not keeping her place.

 

Your kids had great results from VT, but how did their scores compare to my dd's scores? Based on your experience, would you be scrambling to get VT started, or would you be thrilled with these scores?

 

For the reasons in my earlier post, I think we need to keep plugging away at what we're doing for another six months and then re-assess. It might be that she just needs more time for her reading to catch up with the improvements she's made in her underlying skills.

Edited January 16, 2011 by LizzyBee

[PeterPan]

Lizzy, you've got me interested, so I went back and pulled out our findings!

-convergence insufficiency (which they note means her eyes tend to drift outward when she looks at near)

-can't move her eyes inward and outward (cross eyes)

-3 cycles on the vergence facility testing, 15 is considered typical

-on orthoscope-could focus but image was blurry

-0 cycles in 30 seconds on focusing flexibility (it was another tool), 5-6 is considered typical

-some bilaterality issues

 

So those are basically the stats that went with each tool they used. Oh, here's visagraph. Visagraph is the fancy infrared goggles with a computer. They put up a grade leveled text for her to read, and it tracks eye movements. They could then play this back at half speed to let you actually SEE the regressions.

 

Then they included her initial visual perception scores.

 

BTW, did you see this thread? http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33827

 

And here's a site explaining convergence issues, depth perception, etc. http://www.naturaleyecare.com/diseases.asp?d_num=62 You'll notice they list specifically reading fatigue as a symptom of convergence excess.

 

I understand your frustration with the oddities, but it still sounds like you have an actual vision problem (convergence excess) which the VT can improve. That will directly improve her symptoms. Yes, it's the brain getting fatigued, but it's getting fatigued because the incorrect convergence leaves it with double and messed up images that the brain has to resolve. So the brain is both having to do the academics AND clear up the fuzz/mess from the vision! No wonder she gets tired and eventually finds the words moving!

 

Just today I was looking through my dd's work from the last few years and I was shocked at how it actually got WORSE each year instead of better. Her handwriting in K5 was markedly better than 5th! But I think it was partly this exacerbation, where as the academics got harder and harder she was doing more and more things at once (think about math, handle distractions, do harder math, copy from a textbook, add a logical process) till finally it was just overflowing. The brain could no longer mask it. So sure, you could wait. She's complaining about her eyes and the eye doctor has told you it's happening because the images are excessively converging. But it's not going away. VT was stunningly effective for us. Can you start and just take it slowly, see what you think? I mean it's not like they're going to make you pay for 9 months upfront, are they? At our place we could pay by the month with a discount or weekly. 9 months at once a week is 36 weeks. Our place said 24-32 sessions to work on convergence and focusing. It isn't so different. If you don't like this doc, find another. But it does sound like he's at least found the physical explanation for your dd's complaint. Don't focus on the visual processing right now, just the convergence issue. You get that fixed, and then they can retest the processing and see if you need more therapy. It's not like you just have to let them keep going... Our place would retest processing any time I asked. We did it monthly there at the end.

Edited January 17, 2011 by OhElizabeth

[MerryAtHope]

I voted wonderful. Life changing would also have been accurate, I debated between the two answers. I'm not sure it's ALL the answer for my son, but we're also not done yet, but it has definitely helped improve his reading, his confidence in school, and his overall physical well-being (he rarely runs into things and injures himself now, and this used to be a daily occurance). He had 3 diagnoses, none that severe--convergence insufficience and two other things that I'm always forgetting the names of... The biggest issue I could see (after they pointed it out to me, I hadn't noticed at home) was that his eyes wouldn't remain focused on reading. He'd look at something, then one eye would dart out and dart back in again. As you can imagine, it was very difficult for him to read longer words, and often little words disappeared.

 

We have also been working through All About Spelling, and both of my kids' reading levels improved 2 grade levels with that after a year. My son started VT the next year and improved another 2 grade levels (tested above level at that point). I don't think I can attribute that all to VT, but I definitely could see we needed to do something else, and I really think a lot of the changes (especially wrt him running into things, tripping over nothing etc...) can be attributed specifically to VT.

 

My son's vt did a lot of work on integrating primitive reflexes, which our office considers necessary to seeing lasting results. They believe that VT without working through the reflexes is one reason why people don't see success with VT. I've heard that in my other reading too & it's something I would look for in a VT office. My son actually needed a lot of work on these.

 

HTH some, and I hope you find answers. Merry :-)

[VinNY]

Some of my 9 ydd's test results;

Monroe III Age equiv =7.0

Gates Oral Reading 7.1

PTS Span (Seq. Memory) Scled score =5 (4th %)

PTS Closure Scaled Score =7 (16%)

PTS Tach (Speed of Proc) Scaled score=5 (5%)

Motor Free Visual Perceptual Test //Perceptual Age=7.9

 

She is 20/20 with slight astigmatism (no corrective lenses)

Ability to track a moving target was moderately inaccurate and inefficient. Saccadics were slightly inaccurate. Instability with Binocular Fusion (eye teaming). She has some body awareness issues, laterality (good with own body but not projecting out on someone facing her)(Spacial awareness..reversals below average). Good copy skills with unusual pencil grip.

Diagnosis:

Learning related VisionProblems, ocular motor dysfunction/visual motor dysfunction and convergence excess

 

Recommendations:

1/Develop and enhance the quality of dd's ocular motor control

2/ Develop efficient accomodative and fusional facility

3/Develop and enhance visuomotor intergration ability and visual perceptual processing skills

 

We were told 37 sessions and we opted to go 2X a week to get things moving and limit my therapies at home.

 

I am pleased so far. We have not been able to do Ot for awhile and I am still waiting for the school district's OT eval results from November.

[FairProspects]

I voted good, probably helped, because while ds definitely improved significantly, he did VT & OT simultaneously and so it is hard for me to attribute the improvement to one over the other (and there was some maturity that occurred in there as well).

 

The other issue is that ds was so young when he started and completed VT, that many of these comparison/evaluations don't apply to him. He struggled to learn to read, but is now reading above grade level, and the age diagnoses were left out because of his youth.

 

I guess my encouragement to others reading this with young children would be do get the evaluations & treatment done as young as possible, because we are looking forward to moving on with only OT ahead of the academic game, and without having lost a ton of time or coming from behind and trying to catch up. I think that doing these therapies so young really prevented a lot of potential problems down the road (at least I hope :)).

[LizzyBee]

Lizzy, you've got me interested, so I went back and pulled out our findings!

-convergence insufficiency (which they note means her eyes tend to drift outward when she looks at near)

-can't move her eyes inward and outward (cross eyes)

-3 cycles on the vergence facility testing, 15 is considered typical

-on orthoscope-could focus but image was blurry

-0 cycles in 30 seconds on focusing flexibility (it was another tool), 5-6 is considered typical

-some bilaterality issues

 

So those are basically the stats that went with each tool they used. Oh, here's visagraph. Visagraph is the fancy infrared goggles with a computer. They put up a grade leveled text for her to read, and it tracks eye movements. They could then play this back at half speed to let you actually SEE the regressions.

 

Then they included her initial visual perception scores.

 

BTW, did you see this thread? http://www.welltrainedmind.com/forums/showthread.php?t=33827

 

And here's a site explaining convergence issues, depth perception, etc. http://www.naturaleyecare.com/diseases.asp?d_num=62 You'll notice they list specifically reading fatigue as a symptom of convergence excess.

 

I understand your frustration with the oddities, but it still sounds like you have an actual vision problem (convergence excess) which the VT can improve. That will directly improve her symptoms. Yes, it's the brain getting fatigued, but it's getting fatigued because the incorrect convergence leaves it with double and messed up images that the brain has to resolve. So the brain is both having to do the academics AND clear up the fuzz/mess from the vision! No wonder she gets tired and eventually finds the words moving!

 

Just today I was looking through my dd's work from the last few years and I was shocked at how it actually got WORSE each year instead of better. Her handwriting in K5 was markedly better than 5th! But I think it was partly this exacerbation, where as the academics got harder and harder she was doing more and more things at once (think about math, handle distractions, do harder math, copy from a textbook, add a logical process) till finally it was just overflowing. The brain could no longer mask it. So sure, you could wait. She's complaining about her eyes and the eye doctor has told you it's happening because the images are excessively converging. But it's not going away. VT was stunningly effective for us. Can you start and just take it slowly, see what you think? I mean it's not like they're going to make you pay for 9 months upfront, are they? At our place we could pay by the month with a discount or weekly. 9 months at once a week is 36 weeks. Our place said 24-32 sessions to work on convergence and focusing. It isn't so different. If you don't like this doc, find another. But it does sound like he's at least found the physical explanation for your dd's complaint. Don't focus on the visual processing right now, just the convergence issue. You get that fixed, and then they can retest the processing and see if you need more therapy. It's not like you just have to let them keep going... Our place would retest processing any time I asked. We did it monthly there at the end.

 

The language in our test results is so different that I have no idea how to compare your dd's results to my dd's results. :tongue_smilie:

 

I had not seen the thread about VT for convergence excess. I wish I knew what that op's outcome was.

 

In several years of dealing with these issues, you are the first person I've known of whose insurance covered any part of VT. My dd's insurance specifically excludes it.

 

My dd is opposite of yours in that I've recently noticed how much her handwriting has improved. Her letters are more uniform, her tall letters are tall and short letters are short, her lines are straight and her curves are neat, she stays on the lines on the paper, and she is less prone to capitalize a random letter in the middle of a word. Her attention and memory are sooooo much better. When she was 6, I was lucky to get her to sit still for 5 minutes at a time. Dyslexic kids typically need 100 repetitions to retain what they learn, compared to 20 for neurotypical kids. I wondered how in the world I'm supposed to achieve this level of repetition with a kid who absolutely cannot concentrate and cannot remember what I've just said. Most days now, we can work for up to 60-70 minutes on reading. If dh or I give her an assignment to do while we go start a load of laundry or something, she no longer disappears. She stays at the table or on the sofa and does the assignment. She's made so much progress; that's why I'm questioning whether I'm just being impatient for the rest of it to fall into place.

 

As I said, my dh is opposed to pursuing VT. I am pretty stubborn and I've insisted on a lot of therapy for dd that my dh wouldn't have done. (Not because he doesn't care or denies her LDs, but because he tends to be laidback and thinks that everything will work itself out in the end.) But I have to know when to back off. I really think that if we wait 6 months and dd's reading isn't progressing, I can convince dh that we need to re-assess VT without causing a problem in our marriage. OTOH, if she does progress, it may be a moot point.

 

DH and I do have trust issues with the doc we saw before, so now that we have others available in our area, I'm sure we'd try one of the others if we decide to have another evaluation.

Edited January 18, 2011 by LizzyBee

[LizzyBee]

Update:

 

I posted this poll because I had seen such dramatic improvements in some areas that didn't seem to be carrying over to dd's reading. I KNOW that when the brain makes a leap, it takes some time to see the resulting improvements in reading. Nevertheless, when it doesn't happen fast enough for me, I panic and start second-guessing everything I'm doing.

 

I usually trust my gut on matters related to dd's LDs, and many of the professionals in our lives have affirmed that I am very attuned to my kids and I've done a good job providing what they need, whether at home or via therapy. I have believed from the beginning that dd's dyslexia is related to her APD and not vision issues. Heck, I think if I had the vision testing she's had, I would score a whole lot worse than her, because I have observable symptoms of visual deficits and she does not; but I don't have LDs. OTOH, dd does have very obvious auditory deficits. I realize people can have both visual and auditory deficits; dd does in fact have multiple co-morbidities. But I know her better than anyone, and I don't believe vision issues are the problem with her reading.

 

So, finally, here's the update. We were reading together over the weekend, and I realized that dd's reading has definitely improved over the past couple of months. Yay!!! Her word attack skills and stamina have both improved quite a bit.

 

Of course, we are continually monitoring her progress, and I will have her re-evaluated with a different VT doc if she hits a wall that she can't get past. But in the meantime, I need to concentrate our time and effort on the areas where I believe her deficits actually lie. I don't want to lose ground because I'm looking for answers in the wrong place, you know?

 

Anyway, I was so excited listening to her read last evening that I wanted to update and share it here. :001_smile:

[PeterPan]

That's great that you're making some progress! Like you say, it's not just *one* thing with these kids. I mentioned this in another thread, but I read somewhere that most people with low tone will have opthamalogic problems (stuff that would show up on a VT eval) by their mid-20s. I think some of us just have enough strengths that we can compensate or deal with it. But you get those problems plus a few more plus a few more, and the kid just can't cover it. It's why my dh and I could each have problems and still do fine in college but our child, someone with bits of BOTH sets of problems, struggles. She can't mask it or make up for it like we could. :(

[siloam]

If you've done vision therapy, what kind of results did you see? It would be really helpful if you would post and tell us which choice you picked in the poll and the type and severity of your child's symptoms.

 

I've never created a poll before, so give me a few minutes to get it up and running.

 

It appeared to work at first, because my dd started reading more, but I think it was just the bifocals making it easier to see the words combined with my expectations. As soon as I stopped talking it up she stopped reading. She is slightly OCD, so she will respond to expectations. Then as time went on she stopped reading because she didn't want to wear the glasses. She had a mini-party when I told her she didn't have to wear them, and now she reads daily, even when we don't have school.

 

I am convinced her problems are dyslexia and not something treatable by traditional VT. To that end she never even could tell me what was wrong, just that they could improve her eyesight.

 

We have a family history of dyslexia on both sides.

 

But she also wasn't having headaches or problems with words moving or blurring on the page. I even had her take a reading test once with and without my colored reading filters and she did better without. She was reading above grade level but her speed was below grade level (I have the same problem).

 

Heather

 

p.s. I chose no discernible results.

[LizzyBee]

I am convinced her problems are dyslexia and not something treatable by traditional VT. To that end she never even could tell me what was wrong, just that they could improve her eyesight.

 

We have a family history of dyslexia on both sides.

 

 

My oldest sister has a son who is severely dyslexic, and my dd is exactly like him. It was really hard for me to get to the point where I could admit that her dyslexia is severe, but it is. I have tried to figure out where the dyslexia comes from in our family. DH and I are not dyslexic. My sister and her dh are not dyslexic. I did have one sister who never spelled my middle dd's name twice the same way (Rebekah), and she had trouble pronouncing certain words and names. She was smart, got good grades, and wrote procedure manuals as part of her last job. Maybe she was dyslexic, but compensated. I wish I could talk to her and ask her if she thinks she might have been dyslexic, but she died before I knew my dd was dyslexic.

 

I've tried some colored overlays, but they didn't have any effect for my dd. We also tried prescription glasses that basically just enlarge the print, to lessen the strain of reading. She says they don't make any difference, so she doesn't wear them much.

 

My dh has undiagnosed ADHD, so I know where she gets that from. :tongue_smilie:

[siloam]

My oldest sister has a son who is severely dyslexic, and my dd is exactly like him. It was really hard for me to get to the point where I could admit that her dyslexia is severe, but it is. I have tried to figure out where the dyslexia comes from in our family. DH and I are not dyslexic. My sister and her dh are not dyslexic. I did have one sister who never spelled my middle dd's name twice the same way (Rebekah), and she had trouble pronouncing certain words and names. She was smart, got good grades, and wrote procedure manuals as part of her last job. Maybe she was dyslexic, but compensated. I wish I could talk to her and ask her if she thinks she might have been dyslexic, but she died before I knew my dd was dyslexic.

I bet she was. I went through PS, and was only held back in 1st grade. I did pretty well and made honor roll quite a bit of the time. I did do extra credit and such to keep up in English.

 

Funny but I have a cousin named Jeanine who wouldn't talk to me for a year because I kept spelling her name wrong, and different every time. :D

 

I've tried some colored overlays, but they didn't have any effect for my dd. We also tried prescription glasses that basically just enlarge the print, to lessen the strain of reading. She says they don't make any difference, so she doesn't wear them much.

 

That is about where my dd is at. She is reading well now, just still on the slow side (just like me). Her comprehension seems to be fine as long as she isn't overwhelmed (again like me). I can only read and absorb so much information at once. I need time to chew on it and own it. That isn't to say I can't keep reading, but the only thing that really sicks is the beginning, and then bits and pieces of everything after that. At this point I think the problem is more one of the amount of time it takes to own things than it is reading.

 

I am glad to hear your dd has improved! Funny but I sat down with ds this weekend to see how he was doing, and he has also improved greatly with his recall, so what we are doing is working. Just not as quickly as I would like. :rolleyes

 

Heather

[merry gardens]

Update:

 

I posted this poll because I had seen such dramatic improvements in some areas that didn't seem to be carrying over to dd's reading. I KNOW that when the brain makes a leap, it takes some time to see the resulting improvements in reading. Nevertheless, when it doesn't happen fast enough for me, I panic and start second-guessing everything I'm doing.

 

I usually trust my gut on matters related to dd's LDs, and many of the professionals in our lives have affirmed that I am very attuned to my kids and I've done a good job providing what they need, whether at home or via therapy. I have believed from the beginning that dd's dyslexia is related to her APD and not vision issues. Heck, I think if I had the vision testing she's had, I would score a whole lot worse than her, because I have observable symptoms of visual deficits and she does not; but I don't have LDs. OTOH, dd does have very obvious auditory deficits. I realize people can have both visual and auditory deficits; dd does in fact have multiple co-morbidities. But I know her better than anyone, and I don't believe vision issues are the problem with her reading.

 

So, finally, here's the update. We were reading together over the weekend, and I realized that dd's reading has definitely improved over the past couple of months. Yay!!! Her word attack skills and stamina have both improved quite a bit.

 

Of course, we are continually monitoring her progress, and I will have her re-evaluated with a different VT doc if she hits a wall that she can't get past. But in the meantime, I need to concentrate our time and effort on the areas where I believe her deficits actually lie. I don't want to lose ground because I'm looking for answers in the wrong place, you know?

 

Anyway, I was so excited listening to her read last evening that I wanted to update and share it here. :001_smile:

That's encouraging news!

 

I'm glad you posted this poll and I'm glad the thread came up again. You and I have done similar things for our children. (LiPs and Barton.) I believe my son's reading problems are primarily auditory, but I have had a nagging concern that there are some milder vision issues going on with him as well. I've taken him to two different optometrists (who don't do vision therapy) and they both say he tracks fine and everything.

 

Still...I wasn't quite sure that everything was okay with his vision, but I don't want to get "scammed" with some vision therapist saying he needs some expensive, time-consuming, and inconvenient therapy that might not even help him. Then, one day I was looking at an ot website and I saw some of the workbooks from Ann Arbor Publishing that are used to help eye tracking. They're the type of thing that some people who do vision therapy often do as homework. So, I got the workbooks. We started them a few months ago. I time my son each day with them. Most of the time, he can do them in nearly the time I saw somewhere that one vision therapist aims for, but sometimes it takes him longer. Even on the slow days, it takes under five minutes to do a couple of these exercises.

 

I've read more about vision therapy lately too. Some of the other things I've done with my son is done as part of vision therapy sometimes. For instance, we do some of the "mental visualizing" of words they sometimes do, and I once got him an embroidery project to improve his hand-eye coordination. I've done a little of the pencil tracking stuff too. I was thinking about getting a tennis ball on a string to play with, and then--low and behold--my son brought one home the other day from a boys club at our church. Some of the activites seem like just plain fun for kids.

 

I know what you mean about devoting your time and efforts (and money!) to the areas that you suspect the deficits are. I suspect my son may have some minor visual problems going on that might not show up unless he's tired or something. It may not be enough on it's own to cause problems, but compounded with his auditory problems and whatever else, it's just one more thing to make reading difficult. I doubt that these activities we do are going to make-or-break his reading progress, but every little bit might help. I didn't vote in your poll because I don't consider this official "vision therapy", but there are some simple vision activities that don't take too much time, effort or money.

[LizzyBee]

That's encouraging news!

 

I'm glad you posted this poll and I'm glad the thread came up again. You and I have done similar things for our children. (LiPs and Barton.) I believe my son's reading problems are primarily auditory, but I have had a nagging concern that there are some milder vision issues going on with him as well. I've taken him to two different optometrists (who don't do vision therapy) and they both say he tracks fine and everything.

 

Still...I wasn't quite sure that everything was okay with his vision, but I don't want to get "scammed" with some vision therapist saying he needs some expensive, time-consuming, and inconvenient therapy that might not even help him. Then, one day I was looking at an ot website and I saw some of the workbooks from Ann Arbor Publishing that are used to help eye tracking. They're the type of thing that some people who do vision therapy often do as homework. So, I got the workbooks. We started them a few months ago. I time my son each day with them. Most of the time, he can do them in nearly the time I saw somewhere that one vision therapist aims for, but sometimes it takes him longer. Even on the slow days, it takes under five minutes to do a couple of these exercises.

 

I've read more about vision therapy lately too. Some of the other things I've done with my son is done as part of vision therapy sometimes. For instance, we do some of the "mental visualizing" of words they sometimes do, and I once got him an embroidery project to improve his hand-eye coordination. I've done a little of the pencil tracking stuff too. I was thinking about getting a tennis ball on a string to play with, and then--low and behold--my son brought one home the other day from a boys club at our church. Some of the activites seem like just plain fun for kids.

 

I know what you mean about devoting your time and efforts (and money!) to the areas that you suspect the deficits are. I suspect my son may have some minor visual problems going on that might not show up unless he's tired or something. It may not be enough on it's own to cause problems, but compounded with his auditory problems and whatever else, it's just one more thing to make reading difficult. I doubt that these activities we do are going to make-or-break his reading progress, but every little bit might help. I didn't vote in your poll because I don't consider this official "vision therapy", but there are some simple vision activities that don't take too much time, effort or money.

 

Can you tell me the names of the workbooks you're using? Are they just for tracking? My dd doesn't have a problem with tracking. She doesn't use her finger to keep her place even when I encourage her to.

 

I have downloaded some VT info from the internet (some free, some not). Some of the activities, I can't even do myself, so I haven't figured out how to get dd to do them. :lol:

 

Coincidentally, this quarter's issue of Perspective (Intl Dyslexia Assoc publication) was about controversial therapies for dyslexia, so I was able to read that yesterday. Interesting stuff!

 

In the time since I posted this thread, my dd has not complained about her vision going blurry or the words moving, even though I told her to be sure to tell me every time that happens. I think any time she mentions something that could be a problem irt vision, I feel a little panicky because I'm afraid of missing something. But the thing is, I am certain she has dyslexia, not vision problems. We've spent so much time in therapy from the time she was 3, and at some point, we have to focus on reading and math if we want her to catch up in reading and math. :tongue_smilie:

[merry gardens]

Can you tell me the names of the workbooks you're using? Are they just for tracking? My dd doesn't have a problem with tracking. She doesn't use her finger to keep her place even when I encourage her to.

 

I have downloaded some VT info from the internet (some free, some not). Some of the activities, I can't even do myself, so I haven't figured out how to get dd to do them. :lol:

 

Coincidentally, this quarter's issue of Perspective (Intl Dyslexia Assoc publication) was about controversial therapies for dyslexia, so I was able to read that yesterday. Interesting stuff!

 

In the time since I posted this thread, my dd has not complained about her vision going blurry or the words moving, even though I told her to be sure to tell me every time that happens. I think any time she mentions something that could be a problem irt vision, I feel a little panicky because I'm afraid of missing something. But the thing is, I am certain she has dyslexia, not vision problems. We've spent so much time in therapy from the time she was 3, and at some point, we have to focus on reading and math if we want her to catch up in reading and math. :tongue_smilie:

I saw you posted about that publication on controversial dyslexia treatments. It sounds interesting. I'm not a member, but I'll think about joining just to get that issue.

 

We're doing Letter Tracking by Ann Arbor Publishers right now. He finished their Letter and Symbol Tracking book already. (I also bought their Half and Half Design and Color book, but haven't started it yet.) They are workbooks exactly but instead of making copies of each page, I have him write directly into the book. They are not just for tracking alone. According to the back of the book, they are designed to help "develop visual short term memory and visual discrimination, fixations, left-to-right directionality, peripheral awareness, word recognition and saccadic eye movements."

 

The book we're doing contains those exercises to circle the letters of the alphabet. If nothing else, he gets more familiar with alphabetical order and letter shapes, plus he get more practice making circles. (His handwriting's another thing.) The print gets progressively smaller through the book, and there are more letters to work with than in the letter and symbol tracking. It moves from lower case letters only to mixed upper and lower case letters.

 

 

I worry alot too. Every time my son rubs his eye, I worry that perhaps it's caused by some larger vision issue. He's getting much better at reading left to right, but previously, if he started reading a word by saying a middle or end sound first, I wonder if his eyes were maybe crossing or something. I know he's got dyslexia with auditory processing/phonemic awareness problems. (He couldn't pass the Barton screening until we did LiPS.( I just don't know if that's the only thing he's got going on. He's got a very poor visual memory for words--that's why we do portions of Seeing Stars too. I know he is left eye dominant because he holds bee-bee guns to his left eye. I understand that the natural tendency for people with left eye dominance is to look towards the right on the page. Maybe he wouldn't have some of this reading trouble if our written language went in a different direction and used picture-based symbols like some other languages. :tongue_smilie:

 

Anyway, as he is still not reading as much as other children his age, so he doesn't exercise his saccadic eye movements (moving eyes back and forth, left to right then quickly back to the left and down to the next line) as much as children who don't have reading troubles. I figure these exercise might help make up for a little of that, and at least they can't hurt. The books cost only around $20 and as I wrote, they only take a few minutes, so if it doesn't help him, I didn't loose a lot time or money. And perhaps best of all--these exercises help ease some of my worries when he rubs an eye.;)

[PeterPan]

Since y'all are talking about these exercises, I'll mention that when we did them for VT, we did them first with patches (one eye), and later with both. We did have a time factor as well as an auditory component, and they were hard. Thing is, we could make dramatic improvement by doing them daily for a week. I think we knocked out the whole set in a month. In other words, you could spend a lot of time doing at home, spread out over many months, what a VT place could accomplish quite quickly. Just something to think about.

[Dobela]

The Ann Arbors we did involved a time component as well as writing sentences with words provided. Those were hard because the lines were small and ds was having serious handwriting issues at the time. Sometimes we just skipped those or did htem orally. And ds had to wear a patch, trade eyes, not wear a patch, wear prisms, wear nothing depending on where he was in VT.

 

Another tracking exercise he did was called Secades. I am not sure if that is spelled right - it is pronounced si(short i)-kades. We would be given 4 pages of grids of letters/numbers/shapes/words that would be cut out and taped on the wall or door at specific measurements apart in a square shape. Again, depending on where he was in VT it could be with nothing or with patches/prisms/glasses. He would begin on the top right with the first letter, read it only, then the first letter on the top left, bottom right, bottom left before going back to the top and reading the second letter and repeating the process.

[razorbackmama]

My just-completed 6th grader just finished 16 weeks of VT. He had some tracking problems, but nothing SUPER severe. He had some trouble with reading comprehension and would skip words a lot when he read aloud.

 

We got his Iowa scores back today. Last year (end of 5th grade) his reading comprehension GE was 4.3. This year (end of 6th grade, and 11-12 weeks into VT) his reading comprehension GE was 7.4. So he went from quite a bit below grade level to ABOVE grade level.

 

I have been able to notice in his schoolwork that he is comprehending what he reads better. And recently he had to read something out loud at church, and he was THRILLED at how well he did. "Mom! I didn't skip any words!!!!!"

 

He is absolutely ecstatic at how he has progressed, and he attributes it all to VT.:D

[PeterPan]

Kirstin, that's awesome!!! :)

[Dobela]

Kirstin, that's awesome!!! :)

:iagree::iagree::party:

[Lovedtodeath]

Well, the therapist said we didn't need vision therapy, but I did it at home anyway with Helping Children Overcome Learning Difficulties and it seemed to help.

[sbgrace]

**edited to add: oops, I see this is old and yay for the great update and report added! I'm going to leave this and my next reply as it might help someone anyway.

 

I picked fabulous for us.

 

My son had no ability to track or converge when we started. He couldn't steer a trike, catch a ball, or even follow a large object across his field of vision let alone track words in a sentence. I could go on but we used an optometrist who has done this for many years and my son was by far the worst he's ever seen. He wasn't exactly tactful to be honest and it was discouraging at first to put it mildly.

 

There were things I didn't know were related to his vision at the time that dramatically improved. He had major issues with sustaining or even attempting fine motor tasks. I assumed this was a fine motor issues. It was convergence! His eye contact improved so noticeably that relatives who had no clue we were doing anything asked me what we did. It was remarkably different. With that my son began taking in visual information (people's faces/reactions for example) that he never used before. This improved his social issues greatly.

 

There is probably more--it's late and it's been quite a long time since we stopped--but it was one of the best things we've ever done for my son. It was also one of the hardest for a while there! Tracking an item for literally a second or two was torture for both of us. Getting through those beginning exercises was so hard. It was discouraging and he made little to no improvement for what seemed like so long. But when he started improving (finally) we got dramatic improvement and quickly. We did add light therapy along with the traditional vision therapy.

Edited July 14, 2011 by sbgrace

[sbgrace]

Well, the therapist said we didn't need vision therapy, but I did it at home anyway with Helping Children Overcome Learning Difficulties and it seemed to help.

I did this with my son after seeing Carmen mention it. This isn't what was addressed in our vision therapy and I did it post therapy. My son had major issues in the visual spatial and math areas and the exercises in that book were, like the vision therapy actually, really hard for him and then clicked. When it finally clicked it also also helped my son in those weak areas. That book is really good.

 

FWIW, our optometrist seemed to use ideas straight out of the book Developing Ocular Motor and Visual Perceptual Skills. It might be hard to have the confidence to select which exercises and to stick with them without professional guidance if it's as difficult as it was for mine but that book could, imo, help someone who couldn't afford professional therapy. It's got all the typical exercises in there or at least the ones used for my son as well as many, many more! I'm not, though, feeling like his optometrist was particularly up to date even though he had lots of experience so there may be newer and better things now. Still, those exercises and the light therapy is what worked for us.

[LizzyBee]

My just-completed 6th grader just finished 16 weeks of VT. He had some tracking problems, but nothing SUPER severe. He had some trouble with reading comprehension and would skip words a lot when he read aloud.

 

We got his Iowa scores back today. Last year (end of 5th grade) his reading comprehension GE was 4.3. This year (end of 6th grade, and 11-12 weeks into VT) his reading comprehension GE was 7.4. So he went from quite a bit below grade level to ABOVE grade level.

 

I have been able to notice in his schoolwork that he is comprehending what he reads better. And recently he had to read something out loud at church, and he was THRILLED at how well he did. "Mom! I didn't skip any words!!!!!"

 

He is absolutely ecstatic at how he has progressed, and he attributes it all to VT.:D

 

That's wonderful!

[LizzyBee]

**edited to add: oops, I see this is old and yay for the great update and report added! I'm going to leave this and my next reply as it might help someone anyway.

 

 

 

Thank you!

[razorbackmama]

**edited to add: oops, I see this is old and yay for the great update and report added! I'm going to leave this and my next reply as it might help someone anyway.

 

I picked fabulous for us.

 

My son had no ability to track or converge when we started. He couldn't steer a trike, catch a ball, or even follow a large object across his field of vision let alone track words in a sentence. I could go on but we used an optometrist who has done this for many years and my son was by far the worst he's ever seen. He wasn't exactly tactful to be honest and it was discouraging at first to put it mildly.

 

There were things I didn't know were related to his vision at the time that dramatically improved. He had major issues with sustaining or even attempting fine motor tasks. I assumed this was a fine motor issues. It was convergence! His eye contact improved so noticeably that relatives who had no clue we were doing anything asked me what we did. It was remarkably different. With that my son began taking in visual information (people's faces/reactions for example) that he never used before. This improved his social issues greatly.

 

There is probably more--it's late and it's been quite a long time since we stopped--but it was one of the best things we've ever done for my son. It was also one of the hardest for a while there! Tracking an item for literally a second or two was torture for both of us. Getting through those beginning exercises was so hard. It was discouraging and he made little to no improvement for what seemed like so long. But when he started improving (finally) we got dramatic improvement and quickly. We did add light therapy along with the traditional vision therapy.

:party:

 

And I'm curious, had your ds received any diagnosis prior to doing vision therapy? I'm particularly curious as to whether he was diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum in some way, since many of his symptoms would have been huge red flags in that area.

 

Sort of like my oldest, who was diagnosed with PDD-NOS because of his poor use of language. Turns out he has CAPD that affects his language processing ability.

[Mynyel]

My ds9 has depth perception issues. He wears a +625 in his left eye and a +550 in his right. He went to VT and it was great! It took a year and wasn't cheap but it was worth it. He can actually see some 3D stuff now, he couldn't before. If the doctor is saying vision therapy it is probably a good idea!

[Lovedtodeath]

I did this with my son after seeing Carmen mention it. This isn't what was addressed in our vision therapy and I did it post therapy. My son had major issues in the visual spatial and math areas and the exercises in that book were, like the vision therapy actually, really hard for him and then clicked. When it finally clicked it also also helped my son in those weak areas. That book is really good.

 

FWIW, our optometrist seemed to use ideas straight out of the book Developing Ocular Motor and Visual Perceptual Skills. It might be hard to have the confidence to select which exercises and to stick with them without professional guidance if it's as difficult as it was for mine but that book could, imo, help someone who couldn't afford professional therapy. It's got all the typical exercises in there or at least the ones used for my son as well as many, many more! I'm not, though, feeling like his optometrist was particularly up to date even though he had lots of experience so there may be newer and better things now. Still, those exercises and the light therapy is what worked for us.

Thank you for giving us your experience with that book and the suggestion for the other one. I might look into that one, as the therapist said something about an ADHD and vision connection.

[Paisley Hedgehog]

nm