I have just begun to receive the evaluations of my son’s Special Education testing at the school. I received the first two reports last night—one from the OT and one from the school psychologist. My son does not qualify for OHI, for it is not deemed that his inattention issues or behavior are impairing his learning. I am thrilled they are not! He was described as cooperative, social, well liked, happy, and pleasant. Yeah!!!
The OT, however, found the same thing that a private evaluator found in April. My son has a deficiency in visual/motor integration. When given the Berry test, he scored above average on the motor, average on the visual, but below average on the ability to integrate the two. She is recommending keyboarding, as an alternative to writing (he has been found to have a severe disorder of written expression, when tested privately). I am all for the keyboarding. I really want this for my son, and I think it will help him tremendously in the classroom. Still, I am wondering about therapies for visual/motor integration. Does this fall under the realm of vision therapy? Does anyone know of any therapies for this?
I definitely should add that my son was found to have a binocular vision disorder, when tested by a developmental optometrist in May. Vision therapy was recommended. We put it off to do six months of neurofeedback for the ADHD and because I have had my doubts about the effectiveness of vision therapy. I have discussed the latter on this board previously, and I have decided to begin vision therapy with my son, anyway. It’s worth a try, I think. I am just wondering if vision therapy is used for visual/motor integration, or if we may need to look at another therapy for this.
Re: Visual/Motor Integration
Depending on your budget and approach to things you may consider the Dore Achivement Centers / DDAT [ http://www.myomancy.com/2004/06/dore_centres_dd.html ] or Learning Breakthrough Programme [ http://www.myomancy.com/2004/08/learning_breakt.html ]. Alternatively just do any activities that involve hand to eye corridation, e.g. throwing and catching things. but remember to keep things really simple and easy. Plusballs can help with this [ http://www.myomancy.com/2004/09/plusballs_hit_t.html ].
Another alternative is Interactive Metronome [ http://www.myomancy.com/2005/11/interactive_met_1.html ]. This isn’t hand to eye but clapping along to rhythm. Evidence suggests that integrating anything (such hand to beat) makes it easier to integrate other skills (e.g. hand to eye). Interactive Metronome also has a good reputation in treating ADHD.
Chris
Re: Visual/Motor Integration
I was wondering what you did the neurofeedback for and did you see any success with is? Did you do it for visual/motor integration or adhd? how long did you do it before you saw changes, if any?
I am surprised the OT did not recommend therapy for the visual-motor integration problem. Typically, when you have both the integration problem and binocular vision problem, you want to treat both simultaneously (or the integration problem first). Treatment for visual-motor integration requires body therapy — the type of therapy an OT provides. Some developmental optometrists incorporate body therapy into their practices for this very reason, but most do not.
If you have medical insurance, it may cover a private OT eval and some therapy sessions.
There is a book of graduated exercises for visual-motor integration that you could do at home. It is “Integrating Mind, Brain, and Body Through Movement” by Etta Crowley. The only place I know to purchase it is at http://www.oep.org.
Nancy