the more I am convinced that everyone should rule our visual deficits and auditory deficits before considering treatment for adhd.
I say this because of my own experience with my child who certainly qualified as adhd before we learned of his severe ocular motor problems that since being treated have changed many things for him.
I also have a friend whose son was seen as adhd by the school. She took him to an audiologist and found he had severe CAPD. The audiologist does not think that he has adhd at all and that after therapy, including The listening program, fast forward, and interactive metronome he will have only a slight deficit.
I keep seeing this where a child seems very adhd but there are other difficulties that once addressed allows for a very attentive child.
The school did what I thought was a thorough eval....
a thorough eval that belongs in the garbage heap. It is scary to me that I initially accepted their poor prognosis of my very bright child.
I would encourage anyone who has a child that has visual symptoms to see a develpmental optometrist and auditory symptoms to see an audiologist.
Many psychs are not even aware of these issues or don’t accept them and don’t even consider them when dispensing meds.
Re: The more I learn.....
The audiologist we have worked with for Neuronet therapy told me that ADHD was a “residual” diagnosis. In other words, it is the explanation for inattentiveness once everything else has been ruled out. Despite a diagnosis of ADHD from a neurologist, she doesn’t think my son has ADD-inattentive. She thinks all of his attentiveness stems from processing issues. Certainly, we saw measureable changes after doing Fast Forward for CAPD and even more pronounced changes after IM and NN. I perrsonally think in addition to processing issues, he has some ADD-inattentive. I see it in my husband, atlhough he was never diagnosed. My husband is not LD so he has been able to compenstate (although the overfocusing still drives me crazy). We have not medicated our son because we have seen such dramatic improvements through therapy.
Beth
how to decide if need the behavior vision test?
Are there any obvious things to look for before deciding to do the thorough visual exam?
We’ve had the hearing and educational testing - current dx is LD/ADHD. After some complaints about headaches, and eyes feeling ‘different’, and occasional complaints about distance reading (but reading is the trouble spot) we did a standard vision exam and that ruled out a need for glasses.. but I didn’t know about the behavioral vision testing until now.
Any tips on how to know if that should be done too?
thanks :)
Kim
Things to look for....
This is off the top of my head so I might miss a few.
Avoidance of close work; reading writing etc
Turning head while reading
Headaches
Head too close to page
Poor handwriting especially handwriting that is poorly spaced or writing slanted.
Losing place while reading.
Misreading the easy words
There are different symptoms for different types of problems. Vision issues can be different in each child as they involve more than one skill.
Visual memory, visual spatial issues, visual tracking, focusing, etc etc…
If you child has even a few of these symptoms consider an evaluation. I am pretty upset with myself for not getting my son to a developmental optometrist sooner. The opthalmologist kept saying his eyes were fine.
Re: The more I learn.....
Thankfully we’ve been working with a psychiatrist that doesn’t push medication. He himself said that stimulant meds would improve anyone’s focus. Its not that he wouldn’t prescribe if the evidence was overwhelming, but he was reluctant to do it in a border line case where there was clearly other LD/anxiety factors involved.
I agree, I think the testing is so important, thats why I hate when doctors use a med trial as a diagnosis. If the meds help then they have ADD? Please, stims will improve ANYONES concentraition! I hate this. My son’s school did all the testing. Bofore I was even asked to do the Connors, they did other assesments including speech and language and auditory/visual processing. If you haven’t had your child thoroghly tested, you should always be on guard for signs that it could be something else. When will they have standardized testing across the board? Its terrible that some kids get tested right and others don’t. This should be required before perscribing Narcs, why aren’t there laws about this? Its this kind of garbage that gives the Balls of the world ammo.