What do you know about vision therapy

Hi Trudy,

My son is currently doing vision therapy. He was a child who knew how to read but did not like to read. It was pulling teeth to get him to do any close work. He preffered to jump around doing his “creative play.”

He was diagnosed with an ocular motor problem. He had 0 control of his eye muscles and could not track for more than a few seconds.

After 12 weeks of vision therapy he loves to read. He enjoys sitting down to do activities like drawing. He doesn’t jump around as much and is more focused over all now that he doesn’t have to compensate for this deficit.

I think that for some kids it is like they are carrying a heavy load. When you have to work hard to discriminate sounds, or work to use your eye muscles you have to attend to these activities and you may not have anything left for the actual work. It can seem like they are not focused but they are, it is just a focus on overcoming a deficit area.

This is really only one of his vision issues. We are also addressing laterality, near/far focusing, eye hand coordination, visualization and processing speed.

I believe ADHD is real and that vision therapy won’t cure a severe case of ADHD but if a child has vision issues they need to be dealt with so that they are not mistaken for ADHD. Most doctors don’t even look at this when making the diagnosis.

My son looked very adhd before we started to deal with all his deficits.

Thanks- i’m in the process of doing Interactive Metronome but the provider suggest that i have a complete eye exam with the vision screening to rule that out. I’ve done a little research on it and i guess more information about visual deficiencies masking as ADHD is coming out. Thanks again, Trudy

Regarding vision and ADHD, occasionally the right ADHD medicine can have a profound positive, temporary impact on the ability to focus the eyes and see detail. The vision correction is due to the ADHD medicine which relaxes the eyes and allows them to focus more easily.

One of the best accounts and one of the rarest is contained in a true story book with a most unusual title, How to Cure Hyperactivity by C. Thomas Wild with Anita Uhl Brothers, M.D.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/adhd.cfm

[%sig%]

Convergence insufficiency has been correllated to ADHD in a recent study. This is when the eye don’t converge well for near tasks. It is one of the few areas where most eye doctors (Optometrists and Ophthalmologists) agree that vision therapy is useful. It’s rather easy to test. A detailed target is brought closer and closer to a patient’s nose and the patient tries to continue to focus on it. A person with normal convergence will be able to converge up to about 2 or less inches away from the nose. When the eyes can no longer both maintain alignment on the target the patient will notice 2 images and the doctor sees one eye drift out. If this break point is too far out, the patient has convergence insufficiency and as a result has eye fatigue reading or writing.

Any child with ADHD should get an eye exam because it is important to eliminate any aggravating conditions. Only a severe vision problem (such as severe hyperopia) could totally mimic ADHD symptoms. Be a little skeptical if the eye doctor claims to be able to eliminate the ADHD symptoms. Always continue to work every angle when trying to address the ADHD symptoms. I’ve seen parents waste an entire academic year hoping that treatment of an eye condition would solve the school issues.

I’m new to ADHD but very familiar with the eye controversy by nature of my occupation.

I thought IM was a good precursor to vision therapy. My son has shocked his therapist with how fast he moves through the exercises. I think IM helps with that, but he is also just a very hard worker.

One word of caution; vision therapy is alot of work. I think many just take their kids to a vision therpast once or twice a week and think that will do it. It just won’t. We initially did the exercises twice a day to get his tracking up to speed. It worked and he just started reading every chance he got once he broke through that problem. You don’t want a therapist that doesn’t require homework every day. Once or twice a week therapy will just take forever and you will probably just get discouraged and quit.

I listened to alot of blah blah blah about vision therapy before doing it. I am sorry I waited as long as I did.

What kind of homework did they require?

My son did VT for 6 months in office and then for almost a year at home. HE had Convergence Excess and Tracking issues as well as a VisualProcessing Deficit. It was the best money I ever spent. Finishing second grade he could “decode” for reading but his eyes wouldjump allover the page so he couldn’t comprehend what he was reading. He did the in office VT during 3rd grade. He now loves to read, voluntarily will pick up a book, and his Reading Comprehension scores (TerraNova) increased from the low 50th percentile to the high 80th percentile.

He hated it while he was doing it because it involved an hour a week of sitting still while there (he has ADHD), and then about the same amount of time doing “homework” for VT, and it gave him headaches. Now in 5th grade he admits that it was a good choice and that he was glad that I didn’t listen to the Corrective Reading teacher who said that a child could not be”taught to comprehend”. VT was not ever addressed by the school though he was moving up a grade for math and I feel someone should have noticed something. I did not take her statement as valid, and continued reaserchon my own. In talking to another Mom during my daughter’s cheer practice one night, another Mom overheard me talking and recommended I look into Eye Teaming as a possibility. I am so glad she eavesdropped!!!!!

Susan,

We do exercises that work on different underlying skills depending on the deficits. Some optometrists have a fairly narrow view and work on just the specific eye related issues. Some take a more global view and actually deal with areas that are often seen in the realm of occupational therapy. Mine takes a global view. He has been doing this for 40 years and does many of the exercises that are prevalent in cognitive enhancement programs like PACE and some that seem similar to brain gym. Now that his tracking is better we work on balance, coordination and processing speed and a few other things.

This doctor is great because he understands the deficits that cause specific academic problems and really seems to know how to address them. I have met 4 parents in his office 2 were sped teachers 1 regular ed teacher and 1 occupational therapist.

My son’s biggest problem was ocular motor functioning (tracking) he could not control his eye movements. We did a series of exercises that helped him gain control of his eye movements. He had to follow a light up down left right and on angles. There was another one that involved hanging a ball from a doorway that he had lie under and follow with his eyes.

He couldn’t do this for more than a few seconds when we started and after 12 weeks he could do them for 5 minutes. When he gained control of his eye movements a whole world opened up for him. He started reading every chance he got. He stopped doing the noisy pretend play that had him bouncing all over the house. Just to be clear, VT did not teach him how to read, it just helped him to sustain the effort of reading.

I posted all the exercises when we started them on the parenting with LD board. You can search for them.

Linda F

I’ve been in vision therapy for about a year and a half. I have a convergence problem, and also a problem with visual imagery and visual memory. I’ve found that vision therapy has made a big difference.

One of the major changes has been in reading. I used to have to reread a lot. Now I usually don’t, and I can read for much longer periods. Also, during this period, I seem to have gained better perspective in general in my life. I don’t know if vision therapy has played a role in this.

Also I used to compulsively shop, compulsively eat, and pick my skin. All of these behaiors decreased markedly. I don’t know if vision therapy played a role in this.

I’ve also had good therapy during this period. Interestingly, my therapist had recommended vision therapy due to changes that had occurred in her life from having had it. At the time she suggested it, I did not know I had a convergence problem. She, like I, found that vision therapy resulted in psychological changes (neurological?) as well as changes in vision. Surprisingly, my acuity changed and I no longer require glasses for distance.

My daughter had been pronounced visually perfect by the opthamologist. I had been warned off vision therapy as ‘colored overlays that don’t do anything, it’s all a gimmick’ by a very trusted reading professional. But my gut kept telling me that the rubbing of the eyes, the headaches and the crying after a try at the mandatory 20 minutes reading attempt were not right. Parents posted strong messages here that were pro-vsion therapy. I found someone who had been in the business a long time-had balance beams and bean bags all over the office. He was able to show us in minutes how her eyes did not converge-one eye flickered in and out of convergance. We were given the ball exercise-done standing up -and a series of tracking exercises on paper. And we hit it hard. We did them twice a day. It was summer and we were returning overseas. We went back for a another appt. a month later-and amazed the doctor. He felt we had done a crash course and measured tremendous gains. We began to see the daily reading without tears and struggling. And then one fine day, when reading time was up and we were getting redy to leave teh house, my daughter said “Just a minute, I want to finish the chapter.” Can’t tell how elated we were-still are. She reads for pleasure now. Requested books from a poplular series for her birthday this week.

Shop for a good developmental optomertrist. www.covd.org lists many. There is quite a bit of info on the web. Be wary and be informed. Vision therapy made my child’s eye muscles better at focusing-she went from reading is painful to reading is fun. But it did not fix her spelling, her inability to follow a list of verbal instructions, her sense of time and timeliness. My child is still has a specfic language processing disorder and is mildly ADD. It fixed the vision and, in my view, the vision is realated to the other things. But don’t expect the vision therapy to fix ADD, LD’s, etc. It is just one piece of the unique puzzle that is your child.

http://www.pavevision.org/ is an organization of parents/teachers fighting undiagnosed vision problems. they list questions for your eye doctor. I stress -shop around.

The initial visit is generally covered by insurance as an eye exam. Our insurance did not cover the rest. However, in our case, it was 2x 20 min. daily practice at home with monthly checks to measure progress. We still go back for annual exam and do the exercises once a weekend.

I would chime in on Linda’s assessment that there should be daily homework or get another practioner.

Googluck

mmm

You were one of the one’s who convinced me. Pat yourself on the back for helping a child find joy in reading.

Thanks

Linda

I had never heard of vision therapy before this board. I would classify myself as pretty conservative in medical views. It was a stretch for me to go against the opthamalogist and reading practioners. It was Jenny and her vision links on this board that convinced me. I find it interesting that the new CDC site posted on these boards this week does NOT reccommend vision therapy.

I am sad that there are kids walking around who desperately need simple vision exercises and aren’t getting them. Scary.

I have to say, the recent turmoil on this board has been painful because I know how helpful I have found it over the last 3-4 years. I would like others to find the support that I found here.

My only wish is that this board had a resident pharmacologist! I still have reservations about ADD diagnosis and medications and clearly I am not alone. I don’t feel I have ever found a really solid medical practioner. I really appreciate the updates on Strattera, etc. that y’all have posted here.

When did all or any of you start to see the VT carry over to real life, ie reading , visual spatial activities etc? DS is doing VT once or twice a week (schedule permitting ) with exercises at home . (we are supposed to do it every day but probably do it more like 4-5 days /week) Its only been about 6 weeks, so I’m not seeing much other than the exercises themselves are easier. Just curious. Thanks!

It took almost a full 12 weeks. The doctor predicted it would take 8 to 12 weeks to see results.

We did the exercises every day. I even split them up doing them twice a day for shorter periods of time because the exercises were very difficult and this made it more tolerable.

Now we do it closer to 5 days a week.

It is hard to sustain.

We did it twice a day as it was summer holidays. her dad was able to make it more fun than I but we all stuck with it. We took the ball and the paper exercises on trips. We hung the ball from hanging light fixtures everywhere we went.

We started around the 10th of June. Went back to the doctor a month later, he was able to measure great progress. We kept it up. We noticed that she was more interested in reading in late July, early August. That’s when the “just let me finish my chapter” instead ’ okay, my 20 minutes is up” began. School started and the doctor said we could go to a maintenance once a week.

We chose vision therapy and daily reading over tutoring during that summer. She had had intensive tutoring the 2 summers before that took care of the reading skills. She needed to be able to practice and gain fluency. The vision thing was definately an obstacle.

I am a strong reader and I read daily. I read like most people watch TV. it was hard to think my daughter might not read for pleasure at all. She does read for pleasure now. It has been great fun to pretend I don’t know she’s got a flashlight under the blanket; to have her include books on her birthday wish list.

In our favor-it was summer. We explained to our daughter that we were doing this is in lieu of tutoring. She could accept that trade off.

Good luck