I thought you might like a New Zealand perspective of special needs and also I am hoping that some of you most knowledgeable ladies may be able to give me some ideas for my daughter. Since using the net, I can’t believe the wealth of information on it, especially through the bulletin boards. We don’t seem to use labels for our disabled children so much here, and thus it was difficult to find the exact info I needed until I could put a ‘name’ to some of my daughter’s disabilities - besides the obvious ones which are she has spina bifida (wheelchair), hydrocephalus and epilepsy, but assessments from educational psychologists (2) just put her down as having a very general learning disability. Since then I have discovered NVLD which really covers her lack of social skills, wondering about this sensory integration thing - she never put anything in her mouth when she was a baby, didn’t like messy things at toddler stage, always has been a very picky eater, and now has reversed the touch thing by wanted to touch people and hug them (she is 10 years old). I know nothing about this part of her problem, as usually I gather children don’t like to be touched if they have a sensory problem (I may be wrong here -excuse my ignorance!) She is reading at about an early reader level, and has been on a plateau for the last couple of years, after having ups and downs before then. She has low concentration and short term memory loss. I took her to Melbourne Australia when she was 8 for a 10 day applied kinesiology programme where she increased her digit span from 1 to 5, so I know things are possible. Unfortunately, I couldn’t keep going across to Australia for treatment and there was no home programme for her. I’ve looked at NACD - have put in an application which I have put on hold while I look at alternatives (the programme is very expensive from our neck of the woods with the currency difference), have ordered Audiblocks which looks promising and am corresponding through e-mail at the moment with Balametrics (part of the programme could apply to a wheelchair bound person). What I like about all these programmes is the back to basics which I have always felt the school system doesn’t cope with. I need to address the basics before remediation will help, which I guess is what you all have learned. So what I would be grateful for is advice from you ladies who really know what you are talking about. What is out there that can be used as a home programme, using some sort of sensory motor (but because of being in a wheelchair I know some of the programmes wouldn’t be suitable), plus any other back to basics learning programmes. I hope I am in the right thread - I don’t homeschool as my daughter is in a very supportive school environment - the school system incorporates special needs quite well. Except for the very severely disabled children, everyone is mainstreamed, and children keep with their peer group - there is no passing or failing to go up a grade.
I also use Brain Gym, looking at Infinity Walk which after corresponding with the author can be used for a child in a wheelchair - I have never seen this programme mentioned on the boards - it is an American programme and I have the author’s website somewhere if anyone is interested.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. You can e-mail me or put it up on the Boards - I just want to do what I can without running around in circles!
Re: A few other things to check into....
Thanks Mary, I knew you would have some ideas for me. She has seen a developmental optometrist, and he has prescribed glasses for long sightedness and will see her again in July. She has had an OT evaluation and the results were visual-motor integration 5th percentile, visual subtest 5th percentile, motor subtest .09 percentile. Probably visual perceptual skills was the element focused on and she was given compensatory strategies for this. Sensory integration was not mentioned, and has never been tested as far as I can ascertain. She is also under a neurodevelopmental physiotherapist who I have a good rapport with, but no one has really considered sensory integration. I was interested in the sound therapy - have tried Sound Therapy for the Walkman some years ago, but was just too difficult as she was quite anti it. The sound therapy you mentioned I had noticed NACD used it, but was not aware that I could purchase it privately. Sounds like it may be a good idea.
I have tried Phono Graphix and had some success with it. I really need to get back into it with her again, especially as I have heard such good reports about it - just wasn’t sure whether I should do the remediation before I had covered other bases first. She is not good with sight words. I’ll look at the web sites you mentioned - I’m starting to feel like I might be able to get things together!
Re: About the developmental optometrist.....
how many tests did he perform? I can post the whole gamut of testing done by our developmental optometrist, if you like, so you can compare. The visual/motor integration results from the OT eval could be due primarily to motor problems, of course. Does this developmental optometrist do vision therapy?
There is a pretty good CD available for computers, called VisionAerobics, that has a number of exercises used by pilots to sharpen their vision. Cost is about $100. I can remember that it works on binocular fusion (strengthens eye muscles and gets them to work together) and peripheral vision/response time. The latter requires motor response, so might be a way of working on eye/hand coordination.
This is going to sound heretical to some (we used to be Waldorf oriented), but what I think helped dd’s visual/motor coordination a ***lot*** is playing video games.
TLP has to be purchased from a certified provider, but there are a couple of sites that will do it over the internet. (There was a thread about this recently, but it may have dropped off the boards. You might want to do a search.) I’m not sure I’d invest $500 in it if your dd hated the other sound therapy. I have never heard of sound therapy for the Walkman. What is it, exactly?
Not all occupational therapists are trained to assess sensory integration. Here in the U.S., young OT’s seem to have the training but older OT’s often don’t. There is a SID email list at http://www.groups.yahoo.com that is very active. There are a couple of OT’s who post there and sometimes answer questions.
It bothers me that the developmental optometrist only prescribed eyeglasses, considering the results of the OT eval. Did you get detailled test results from the DO? How could she possibly be age-appropriate in vision with those OT scores? (or maybe it’s all due to motor problems?)
Mary
Re: About the developmental optometrist.....
Sound Therapy for the Walkman was originally developed in Canada and used the Tomatis system through a walkman which must receive above 15kHz. The music is mainly Mozart but quite raspy owing to the treatment of the music. NACD used it previously but it has been superseded by Somonas and TLP (or so I gather). TLP sounds expensive (equivalent to $NZ1000) so I would have to really look into it - it is obviously a lot more unobtrusive as it can be played as background music I imagine.
You have given me a lot of questions about the DO which I can’t answer as I didn’t get a report - he spent about an hour testing her and it was interesting to note that she had been tested by a regular optometrist about 18 months previously who hadn’t picked up her longsightedness. I would be interested in the testing if you could supply it for me and then I would have something to compare when I next take my daugher to see him. I am unaware whether he does Vision Therapy and this may be something I would need to pick up on in a larger centre.
I do know that the visual/motor problems are relative to children with sb and hydrocephalus although not every child has them and I know of some who don’t seem to have the perceptual problems. Isn’t this a lot to do with the crawling, moving stages children normally go through?
I appreciate your insight Mary.
Re: Developmental vision evaluation tests
I got a written report from the developmental optometrist, and these were the areas tested.
Eye health, refractive status, color vision (the usual eye exam stuff).
Developmental vision skills: balance, gross motor, bilateral coordination. (These overlap occupational therapy exam stuff.)
Vision performance skills: focusing (accommodation), eye teaming abilities (binocular fusion and fixation), depth perception (stereopsis), eye movement control (gross pursuits and gross saccadic eye movement skills, basically tracking ability for sports). These are the areas that vision therapy helped with, also called “visual efficiency” skills, which I consider to be primarily sensory/motor level development.
Vision analysis/perceptual skills: visual concentration (fine pursuits), fine eye movement control (fine saccades, the kind of tracking required for reading), reversal frequency, visual sequential memory, visual closure, visual-motor integration (ability to reproduce complex visual patterns), fine motor speed and precision (eye-hand coordination), auditory-visual integration (match auditory beat with visual symbols), and an oral reading test (Slosson). This category of skills is most efficiently developed using Audiblox or PACE, rather than vision therapy. These are also called “visual processing” skills.
The “visual efficiency” tests were reported in general terms — normal, or type of problem was noted for each test. Most of the “visual processing” tests were reported with percentile rankings and age equivalencies. In my dd’s case, her percentile rankings ranged all the way from 1st (fine saccades) to 99.9th (visual closure). After vision therapy and PACE, she scored within the normal or better range on all tests. Her weakest score remained fine saccades which, at 40th percentile, would still be considered within the average range.
It’s true that crawling stages, etc. have a lot to do with development of the vestibular system and sensory integration. That’s where I think Balametrics would be very useful for your dd. It just seems odd to me that vision problems aren’t also playing a role in those very low visual-motor integration scores from the OT.
Incidentally, if you haven’t been there yet, I suggest that you check out the information at http://www.neuroacoustics.com about how vestibular system development affects vision and the ability to learn. Although NeuroNet is aimed primarily at children who have auditory processing disorders that have disrupted vestibular development, I would think a lot of the information would pertain to your dd also.
Hope this helps!
Mary
Re: Developmental vision evaluation tests
I am so glad to have found a post on here about Developmental (Behavioral) Optometrists. People made me feel like a Neanderthal when my son began Vision Therapy-his problem was so severe that he has required 24 sessions of therapy-not covered by insurance (medical vs. educational). My step-daughter was able to be corrected with glasses. Whenever I hear anyone with an ADHD child who also has problems with Reading Comprehension, I tell them how much this has helped my son. My step-daughter just got her glasses. Her problem was milder and took longer for me to pick up also due to the fact that she is only here on weekends.
Now if the therapy could only help his handwriting……
Sounds as if you have a good handle on different programs.
I personally like Balametrics, and much of it could be done in a wheelchair. Hopefully they will give you a price break.
Audiblox should help with concentration and short-term memory, among other things.
You might consider BrainBuilder 3.0 for digit span. It is very narrowly focused, and I actually think Audiblox is better, but BB could provide some additional exercise in a different format. It’s a CD-ROM used on a computer that provides exercises for auditory and visual sequencing and short-term memory. It gets very boring, so you would want to limit it to maybe two 10-minute sessions per day or less. Cost is about $60, I think. Website is http://www.advancedbrain.com
Have you considered any sound therapies? Advanced Brain also produces The Listening Program (TLP). This is on audio CD’s, and the child listens to it for about 20 minutes per day. They used sophisticated gating and other sound manipulation techniques to stimulate the auditory system. Cost runs about $500 for the set, although they have supplementary CD’s for specific areas such as sensory integration, relaxation, concentration, etc. The advantages of TLP over other sound therapies are (1) it can be done at home, (2) it is mild and gentle, (3) it can be repeated as often as you like with no extra cost. NACD often recommends it. I would just get the main set first. You can always add supplementary CD’s later.
An eval by an occupational therapist trained to assess sensory integration would give you a better handle on whether SID is a problem. There are many rather easy protocols that can be done at home to work on sensory integration. A good OT can train you in these techniques.
Has she had a developmental vision eval?
If you post more about your dd’s specific level of reading, and the approaches you have tried so far, you might get some suggestions for that also.
Mary