My daughter is mid-way through an estimated 6 months of vision therapy. She is supposed to be re-evaluated in 2 weeks to see what progress she has made. She is 10 (almost 11) and is reading at about a beginning 2nd grade level, and she has a hard time with math too. She can’t remember the basic math facts. She did the PACE program about 1 1/2 years ago, which did help her learning ability overall.
Anyway, I haven’t seen any results with the VT, and am wondering if she should continue with it. I’ve found a Vision Builder CD, that you can order on-line, and it looks like it has alot of the things VT has. And it’s alot less expensive (insurance isn’t covering VT).
I’m wondering if just doing a more intensive O-G based reading program would have better results. By the way, I homeschool her.
What would you do? I know I haven’t given you much information, but I’d appreciate any advice.
Thanks!!
Nancy3
What problems, exactly, is the vision therapy trying to address? That would go a long ways toward determining whether Vision Builder would be a good substitute or not.
Also, have you considered http://www.homevisiontherapy.com software? My understanding is that pre-testing, the software, and post-testing usually comes to under $300. This software does not address all possible developmental vision problems, but does a pretty good job with some of the more common ones (convergence, and perhaps others).
Typically one would do VT before PACE. VT works on a sensory issue (visual efficiency skills), while PACE works on cognitive skills. Since cognitive skills build on sensory development, one would not get optimal gains from PACE if there were unresolved sensory issues. VT is designed to improve visual efficiency skills, while PACE is designed to improve visual processing skills. Visual processing skills build on visual efficiency skills, and it’s the visual processing skills that directly affect reading. This means that it’s possible to be getting gains from VT yet not see any improvements in reading.
My advice is to wait for the results from the interim testing. If your dd has made significant gains on the visual efficiency tests, then I would continue with VT. When VT is finished, I would then follow up with more cognitive skills training (a PACE “refresher” would be good!) to develop visual processing skills from the gains. If, however, the interim testing does not show significant gains in visual efficiency skills, I would drop it. Six months is enough to show significant gains if they are going to happen.
Re: Continue with vision therapy?
Nancy3,
Her initial VT exam showed her having Convergence insufficiency and Eye movement disorder. She has trouble with saccadic eye movements and eye teaming and several visual perception skills. She is 10 years old, and scored at a below the average 5 year old level for Visualization (using your “Mind’s Eye”).
I’ve had both my children do vision therapy with very different results. my oldest, now 18, had VT when he was in 4th grade. We saw some improvement after only 2 months and continued improvement even after he stopped doing the actual therapy. For him, I would say it was a success even though he will never be a fast reader.
Now comes along the younger child. She was in 2nd grade when we attempted VT. There was NO improvement for her, even trying it again in later years. The reason it didn’t work out was that VT does not address color sensitivity (Irlen Syndrome). Once we got that addressed, she has made slow progress. Unfortunately we didn’t get the Irlen diagnosis until she was in 6th grade and had developed a lot of resistance and negative feelings about reading. Currently we are trying to undo all that damage.