IM question

I guess I would ask how they divide the time up. Are we talking 45 minutes of IM and 15 minutes of other things? That might work and the variety might prove beneficial as well. And what exercises from PACE they would use. PACE has some vision type exercises that address tracking and speed of processing which assume there are not other underlying visual issues like binocculaity (sp?). Are they focusing on these type of exercises or more motor exercises like bean bag throwing. There are also lots of cognitive exercises (the focus of the program) that I would see as less compatible with doing IM (would see IM first as beneficial to do these).

I know when I had an SID evaluation that OT told me that kids often make lots of progress with vision therapy when they start OT for sensory disorder. IM works on motor planning so I can see how adding vision could be beneficial (assuming they have the expertise at vision therapy).

Theoretically, it makes sense to me that you might get more bang for your time by interweaving therapies. We did that to some extent by doing Neuronet and then IM and going back to Neuronet. I thought it was very effective.

I would also ask for references.

Beth

Laura,

I did some visual spatial exercises with my son while doing IM. I talked about them at the time they were from Rosner’s book.

I thought doing both at the same time worked out great. Something about doing IM made those exercises move very fast. I don’t fully understand it but I think those exercises worked out very well because of the IM.

I think IM improves attention and if you can use that boost in attention to work on cognitive skills I think there can be good synergy.

Think of it like gaining the stronger attention and then learning how to use that attention for learning. Some use neurofeedback with cognitive enhancement with good results. I saw some studies on this.

What specifically are the attempting to address with each of the therapies. I understand Vision Therapy, will be attending to visual processing issues. PACE has a various sections. What issues do IM address, it looks like attention issues. Is that what you are doing it for?

Hi Beth,
I called this afternoon and was told that it would probably be about 40 minutes of IM with 20 minutes of whatever else they might think would be beneficial.

They did say they probably wouldn’t be adding VT since I mentioned we’d most likely get it locally (I’l LOVE to go to this place, but it’s very far from my home and they would prefer us to go 3x a week which would be almost impossible. Interestingly, the local optomotrist would only have us come in once a week — This leads me to more questions!!!: Does anyone know the average length of time for VT [6 mos, 1 yr], and also do most optomotrists want patients in 1x per week or more????).

Because their office is far from my home, I was told that they’d most likely concentrate on IM in order to provide it in the shortest amount of time (with as few visits as possible).

This IM provider is also a vision center and the doctor who runs it has been providing vision therapy for 14 years now.

I think my son has fairly good attention. For many things he can “hyperfocus.” But sometimes he seems to have difficulty with language. Hearing it and reacting to it. I’ve always had a difficult time figuring out how much of this is due to a real problem or just part of his personality. Also, some of this could be attributed to a social “quirk.”

At one time I wondered if he had CAPD, but testing through the school indicated results in the average to above average range.

I’m glad to hear that IM helped your son with visual perceptual exercises.

Hi Penny,
I’m hoping the IM will help with sensory integration and motor planning (dyspraxia). It would be nice if it helped with processing speed or “slow timing.”

I believe my son needs VT to help with reading. Many of his phonological and decoding skills are in place. He’s even gaining fluency. But overall he still makes simple mistakes (leaves out small words, skips lines), hates reading small print …actually hates reading in general! I’m hoping VT will make reading visually easier so he may learn to enjoy it, and once reading becomes enjoyable he’ll want to read more and will progress more easily.

Ask about home exercises. Once a week probably isn’t enough without home exercises. We did twice a week for 30 minutes and then once a week for an hour with exercises.

Beth

any therapy once per week. Studies on the brain show that it takes a more intensive approach to form new neural pathways.

I would not go to a vision therapist that did not give homework. The last one that I looked at did it twice a week with no homework. I said, “No thanks.” The exercises should be done every day.

They firmly require 15 minutes of home exercises per day. In some ways that seems like a long time. On our own we generally do 10 minutes at 3 or more times per week.

The good thing about going to a VT for vision therapy is that exercises would be more directed. Sometimes it’s difficult for me to know which ones are more helpful or how much my son’s getting from them.

They did say the more home therapy you incorporate, the shorter the therapy duration.

I think that is a good signal about the place. Realize you can break the 15 minutes a day up—do 5 minutes in the morning before school, for example. Once a week in house therapy would give you lots of guidance too.

Beth

we had good luck with vision therapy for exactly the kind of things you have mentioned-trouble with small print, skipping letters or words, inability to read more than 20 minutes. My daughter had other problems, which remained, but it’s easier to work on phonology when things don’t jump all over the page!!

We were sticklers for daily exercises. It was summer so we doubled up-2 sessions a day which were broken into different exercises. We saw (and doc measured) very significant improvement in 6 weeks. We backed off to once daily and then less when school started. 1 1/2 years later we try to do the exercises once a week for maintenance.

I suggest a timer. Our doc had us do several different exercises and we switched frequently- 5 minutes, 2 minutes, 2 minutes, etc

Good luck

Those are great ideas about breaking up the time, and using a timer.

Did your daughter actually recognize that words “jumped” on the page? Was she herself aware of her vision difficulties?