Experiences with Amblyopia and reading intruction?

[MyLittleBears]

So, my K'er (6) has been steadily learning to read and was doing quite well. He learned his letters and blends almost without trying. His is very bright but I noticed a couple of months ago that he would tilt his head from side to side and pull on his eye lashes when he would watch TV. He also started having trouble reading what he read easily at the begining of the year.

Well, I took him to the eye doctor this week and it turns out he has high astigmatism in his left eye and low (almost perfect vision) in his right eye. So his brain started to block out the poor image in his left eye causing amblyopia. Now he needs glasses for vision and eye patch therapy in a couple of months to retrain his brain to acknowledge the image in his bad eye so that the connection won't continue to atrophy. I was in shock. I had never even heard of this before. I am happy it was caught in time, but after having two ds' with dyslexia, I was relieved to have a least one dc that seemed to learn easily. :crying:

 

Anyone have experience with this? I am wondering if I should continue teaching him to read or take a break?

[Crimson Wife]

My DS just finished up a year of patch therapy for amblyopia. Interestingly, his vision was checked a few months before he learned to read and it was fine then. He only developed the amblyopia AFTER he learned to read. Our pediatric ophthalmologist said that it is not unusual for that to happen.

 

With the glasses to correct the astigmatism, I don't see why there would be a problem continuing with reading instruction during the patching.

[LittleIzumi]

:grouphug: Dd has (had?) amblyopia in one eye, astigmatism in one eye, etc. She would also do the head-tilt, would skip words, HATED reading. The pediatric ophthalmologist didn't patch and said she was fine because she could read one small letter in isolation (although not if you put it in a sentence or a paragraph!). She ended up in vision therapy for several months with a COVD optometrist for issues with convergence and tracking, mostly. Her eyes didn't work together or follow words on the page. After her VT, she could read. She stopped turning her head. She stopped freaking out about reading one page of a K reader. She started reading a page or two at a time of chapter books happily. It was a HUGE difference. I don't notice her eye turning out at ALL anymore and she can follow words so much better. She sometimes uses a bookmark underneath her current line on the page, but that's it.

[Storm Bay]

So, my K'er (6) has been steadily learning to read and was doing quite well. He learned his letters and blends almost without trying. His is very bright but I noticed a couple of months ago that he would tilt his head from side to side and pull on his eye lashes when he would watch TV. He also started having trouble reading what he read easily at the begining of the year.

Well, I took him to the eye doctor this week and it turns out he has high astigmatism in his left eye and low (almost perfect vision) in his right eye. So his brain started to block out the poor image in his left eye causing amblyopia. Now he needs glasses for vision and eye patch therapy in a couple of months to retrain his brain to acknowledge the image in his bad eye so that the connection won't continue to atrophy. I was in shock. I had never even heard of this before. I am happy it was caught in time, but after having two ds' with dyslexia, I was relieved to have a least one dc that seemed to learn easily. :crying:

 

Anyone have experience with this? I am wondering if I should continue teaching him to read or take a break?

 

This isn't answering your direct question, but I wanted to say that you may wish to check with a vision therapist. My ds had eye patching, and it ended up that it made something he had worse. The place to check for a vision therapist is at COVD http://www.covd.org/ . However, ds was using patching to help a lazy eye, but in actuality his binocular vision hadn't developed. Ds also has astigmatisms & I'm not sure how they vary with each eye. At nearly 12 he refuses to wear glasses & often reads by turning his eyes to one side (drives me crazy, but he is convinced they look geeky. Once in a while I do force the glasses for certain school tasks. He has been refusing for over a year, and before that stopped wearing them in public. However, his binocular vision is normal now.

[lindsrae]

:grouphug: Dd has (had?) amblyopia in one eye, astigmatism in one eye, etc. She would also do the head-tilt, would skip words, HATED reading. The pediatric ophthalmologist didn't patch and said she was fine because she could read one small letter in isolation (although not if you put it in a sentence or a paragraph!). She ended up in vision therapy for several months with a COVD optometrist for issues with convergence and tracking, mostly. Her eyes didn't work together or follow words on the page. After her VT, she could read. She stopped turning her head. She stopped freaking out about reading one page of a K reader. She started reading a page or two at a time of chapter books happily. It was a HUGE difference.

 

I don't notice head tilting, but my DD has had some struggles in reading. She completely freaks out when she sees a page full of text. She's a huge drama queen, so I thought most of the year it was just a stubbornness/personality thing, but reading through this thread, and especially the bolded parts, makes me wonder if it is something else. While she CAN read at a second grade level, she can NOT handle most books written at a second grade level because they are "so long" to her. I didn't suspect any vision issues, but the "freaking out" really stood out to me.

[PeterPan]

I don't notice head tilting, but my DD has had some struggles in reading. She completely freaks out when she sees a page full of text. She's a huge drama queen, so I thought most of the year it was just a stubbornness/personality thing, but reading through this thread, and especially the bolded parts, makes me wonder if it is something else. While she CAN read at a second grade level, she can NOT handle most books written at a second grade level because they are "so long" to her. I didn't suspect any vision issues, but the "freaking out" really stood out to me.

 

The best thing to do when you're seeing symptoms of vision problems is to get them evaluated. You want a developmental optometrist, not a regular one. Go to COVD to find them and get a Fellow if you can.

[laundrycrisis]

Yes - COVD optometrist for vision therapy. And I will say from the start, ask if they test for and treat for visual processing problems as well, and don't get started with any doctor who doesn't.

 

DS1's journey began with a diagnosis of severe amblyopia (legally blind in one eye). Patching was not enough. He was not able to learn to read with any fluency until after completing a lot of vision therapy.

 

See my "vision triumph" thread. Three years later, he is reading chapter books and a very good baseball player !! None of this would have been possible for him without VT.

[Crimson Wife]

Ophthalmologists dismissing developmental optometry is a turf war. It's like how orthopedists dismiss chiropractors, and obstetricians dismiss nurse-midwives. The easiest way for M.D.'s to protect their turf is to dismiss the competition as "quacks". :thumbdown:

 

I know many, many families whose children went from being struggling readers to at or above grade level very quickly as a result of VT.

[laundrycrisis]

I would not recommend VT if I hadn't witnessed it work for my own kid. He was also 20/30 after patching, but his eyes didn't work together at all. Ophthalmology has nothing for that. VT has been his miracle.

 

It is physical and occupational therapy for the visual system. It works for other parts of the body that involve muscles and the brain - there is no logical reason to say that it doesn't work for the visual system. Ophthalmologists are not qualified to discredit it because they are not trained in it, do not do it, and have no direct experience with it, so there is no way for them to claim that it doesn't work.

 

MDs discrediting VT in spite of their vast ignorance is no different than medical doctors saying that chiropractic and OT don't work. But they do, and insurance companies eventually came around to covering these therapies, and they are coming around to covering VT as well, as the evidence in its favor accumulates. We were able to get medical insurance coverage for a good chunk of our son's final course of VT, specifically because there are peer-reviewed studies supporting VT as the preferred treatment for certain conditions. His case went to external peer review, and was approved by a panel that included professionals outside of optometry, specifically because the treatment worked and is supported by the studies.

[Storm Bay]

If it turns out that it's not a vision issue, but an isue with the length of books, that might be maturity. My middle dd was like this and her vision was fine with glasses at that time (now she doesn't need them at all). She was simply overwhelmed by the length. When she was 6 I'd let her look at all of the pictures first (she read the words, not the pictures; ds was the opposite & so I didn't let him see the pictures until he'd read the page). Then I'd cover up part of the writing so that she didn't have to see it all at once. Another option would be to have yor

 

Each of my dc started to like to read at different ages, and I found that at age 6 shorter reading sessions were more effective for the two who took longer to start to enjoy reading. While all of my dc read well ahead of age peers now, they didn't all at age 6, and even the ones who did didn't always want to read books at the same level they were able to read.

 

No, not COVD.

 

 

You need a real Dr not optometrist.

 

 

You should be seeking a ped ophthalmologist. They will tell you that COVD is quackery.

 

 

My son has amblyopia and was dx'ed at 5. His vision is 20/30 corrected after a year of patching and about 6 mos of drops (atropine penalized the good eye.)

 

 

 

This COVD push on this board is concerning. The AAP has a lot to say about it. None of it positive. VT is $$$$ and it's not usually recommended.

I come a family with a number of MDs, inlcuding my father who is a surgeon (not sure if you are familiar with how most surgeons view alternative medicine), who are against a variety of therapies and healing arts. You may want to think about my reply for a while before answering, because I grew up opposed to many healing arts practices, including chiropractic. Chiropractic was considered quackery by many doctors for decades.

 

As Laundry Crisis mentioned

It is physical and occupational therapy for the visual system.

Having done a great deal of OT through early intervention for my ds, who was born with low muscle tone, I have to agree; this is a great description

 

MDs discrediting VT in spite of their vast ignorance is no different than medical doctors saying that chiropractic and OT don't work. Correct.

 

My ds has gone to an opthamologist for years and still goes there and had eye patching which helped his vision in the one eye but did nothing to help is other vision problems. Vision therapy doesn't deal with sight so much as how the brain interprets what it sees when there is a problem. I looked into one of the diagnostic pieces of equipment and since my brain interpreted it correctly, I could see right away the problem my ds was having because I'd heard him describe what he saw. The opthamologist never thought to check this out even when I described ds's problems, nor does he have the background & equipment to do so.

 

The optometrist we went to (who has a Ph.D. in optometry) gave my son vision therapy that absolutely corrected his lack of binocular vision and it has made a substantial difference in his reading. Ds could read, and if ds heard a story he had excellent comprehension well above average, but his reading comprehension was well below average because of how he was reading. My opthamologist was no help in this at all, but he knows where we went; in fact when the vision therapist retired, all his patients were recommended to go to our opthamogist's group practice. In addition, while our insurance at the time wouldn't pay for it, the state health insurance does, so it's not likely quackery. Ours was surprisingly cheap because he'd been doing it for a long time.

 

The problem with vision therapy is that there are many who don't know what they are doing who practice it, which is why it's important to check the qualifications first, and that it isn't as cut and dried like allopathic, surgery based medical practices. Of course, even conventional medicine itself is part art & part science, as any good MD will tell you, and there are a lot of foolish studies done that overlook factors that could help improve medicine immensely due to its parts to whole approach. A good vision therapist devises unique combinations of exercises for each patient, which makes it difficult to do the type of studies peer peer reviewed periodicals tend to accept.

 

 

 

It is physical and occupational therapy for the visual system.

 

MDs discrediting VT in spite of their vast ignorance is no different than medical doctors saying that chiropractic and OT don't work. .