Post by lllex on Jul 20, 2004 10:45:38 GMT -5
Hi all, I've been away from the board awhile - boy did I miss reading your posts!
Anyway I just wanted to update you on a new development with Max. His eyes have been hurting him when he reads, so I took him to a vision therapy center to have his eyes tested. I chose a therapy center because the testing they do is much more comprehensive and he's had his eyes tested at his doctor and at school and they've never detected anything.
So here are the results:
1 - He's far sighted, not too terribly, but it's significant. That means he can see far pretty good, but seeing near is the main problem. But he can't see far at 20/20 either. Even with the adjustments on their machine thing, he couln't read the 25/20 line without missing a letter. I'm going to get his glasses today - he does not want them
! How did the school test miss this???
2 - His focusing ability is not developed to where it should be. This is where you look at something close and then at something far and then close and then far - normally that's no problem and no strain, but apparently for him it is a problem. His measurements on this are 2.75 in one eye and 3.00 in the other, for a child his age its supposed to be around 12! That's a huge difference - it was such a major difference from what it should be that the doctor called someone else over to take a look at it. Could this be why copying things from the black board is an impossible task for him?
3 - His eyes don't play well together - it's called teaming. When you look at a word on a page, both your eyes are focused on the word - picture a "V" from both your eyes to the word. Well Max's eyes don't meet exactly at the word, so from his eyes to the word forms an "X", where one of his eyes is not quite focused on the word. This causes a little bit of double vision - his is side to side, but you can also see up and down doubles, or diagonal doubles. His doubling is pretty slight so that he doesn't notice it - his brain will take care of removing the double image, but this means that his brain has an extra task when he's reading.
There is a lot of info on Vision Therapy and in many cases the symptoms of Vision problems mimick the symptoms of ADD. The therapist that I talked to thinks that a lot of Max's troubles might stem from his vision problems. I'm a little skeptical about that, but I'm going to do the therapy anyway, it might help, and I want him to be able to read without his eyes bothering him. His therapist also mentioned that vision problems can cause problems with remembering a sequece of instructions. Apparently when someone tells you a set on instructions you picture (envision) each instruction and then put that picture in your head, if you have trouble with your vision even envisioning an instruction to put in your head is affected. I thought that was interesting, but I'm not sure I entirely believe it.
I love the therapist he's going to have - she's a mother of 4 boys. She used to be a teacher, when one of her boys was in third grade and struggling with remedial work. She was at the end of her rope and didn't know how to help him, then she took him to the Vision Therapy Center. The results were so incredible that she changed her profession and started working at the center as a therapist. She wanted to help others the way that her son was helped. He's now a sophmore in high school and on the honor roll. Now that I re-read what I wrote it sounds like a load of bull ;D. But this woman seemed very genuine to me, so I'm going to be my usual gullible self and believe her
.
So he's now scheduled for 6 months of therapy, we'll drive 2 hours (round trip) once a week to the session (ugh), and then he has to practice at home 5 times a week. I sure hope it's worth it - has anyone else gone through vision therapy? Halfway through they do the testing again to measure the results. I like the fact that it measurable!
We're going on vacation next week and then the therapy starts the week after that. I'll keep you updated on any progress.
Very long post, sorry
.
Any thoughts on Vision Therapy?
Laura
Anyway I just wanted to update you on a new development with Max. His eyes have been hurting him when he reads, so I took him to a vision therapy center to have his eyes tested. I chose a therapy center because the testing they do is much more comprehensive and he's had his eyes tested at his doctor and at school and they've never detected anything.
So here are the results:
1 - He's far sighted, not too terribly, but it's significant. That means he can see far pretty good, but seeing near is the main problem. But he can't see far at 20/20 either. Even with the adjustments on their machine thing, he couln't read the 25/20 line without missing a letter. I'm going to get his glasses today - he does not want them
! How did the school test miss this???2 - His focusing ability is not developed to where it should be. This is where you look at something close and then at something far and then close and then far - normally that's no problem and no strain, but apparently for him it is a problem. His measurements on this are 2.75 in one eye and 3.00 in the other, for a child his age its supposed to be around 12! That's a huge difference - it was such a major difference from what it should be that the doctor called someone else over to take a look at it. Could this be why copying things from the black board is an impossible task for him?
3 - His eyes don't play well together - it's called teaming. When you look at a word on a page, both your eyes are focused on the word - picture a "V" from both your eyes to the word. Well Max's eyes don't meet exactly at the word, so from his eyes to the word forms an "X", where one of his eyes is not quite focused on the word. This causes a little bit of double vision - his is side to side, but you can also see up and down doubles, or diagonal doubles. His doubling is pretty slight so that he doesn't notice it - his brain will take care of removing the double image, but this means that his brain has an extra task when he's reading.
There is a lot of info on Vision Therapy and in many cases the symptoms of Vision problems mimick the symptoms of ADD. The therapist that I talked to thinks that a lot of Max's troubles might stem from his vision problems. I'm a little skeptical about that, but I'm going to do the therapy anyway, it might help, and I want him to be able to read without his eyes bothering him. His therapist also mentioned that vision problems can cause problems with remembering a sequece of instructions. Apparently when someone tells you a set on instructions you picture (envision) each instruction and then put that picture in your head, if you have trouble with your vision even envisioning an instruction to put in your head is affected. I thought that was interesting, but I'm not sure I entirely believe it.
I love the therapist he's going to have - she's a mother of 4 boys. She used to be a teacher, when one of her boys was in third grade and struggling with remedial work. She was at the end of her rope and didn't know how to help him, then she took him to the Vision Therapy Center. The results were so incredible that she changed her profession and started working at the center as a therapist. She wanted to help others the way that her son was helped. He's now a sophmore in high school and on the honor roll. Now that I re-read what I wrote it sounds like a load of bull ;D. But this woman seemed very genuine to me, so I'm going to be my usual gullible self and believe her
.So he's now scheduled for 6 months of therapy, we'll drive 2 hours (round trip) once a week to the session (ugh), and then he has to practice at home 5 times a week. I sure hope it's worth it - has anyone else gone through vision therapy? Halfway through they do the testing again to measure the results. I like the fact that it measurable!
We're going on vacation next week and then the therapy starts the week after that. I'll keep you updated on any progress.
Very long post, sorry
. Any thoughts on Vision Therapy?
Laura
-no clue but he wanted to read it and he did, NASCAR, dirt bikes. All of them different, but all of them has him reading and finding out information.
. I'll have to think up some really good threat to get him to wear them - maybe I'll tell him he'll have to take even more vitamins if I catch him without his glasses on ;D.
So I suggested that we stop and he go to bed since he's not feeling well, then he said he's fine and reluctantly finished them. I don't get it, they're not hard and they only take 20 minutes