eye convergence

Do whatever the behavioral optometrist says…. pay out of pocket if you have to…. but, tell them that you don’t really have the finances for the in-office therapyk, and they can teach you most of the exercises and you can do them at home….It was well worth the extra expense to help remediate this for us…. I only wish that more could have been done.: Does anyone know of a book, website or personal knowledge of
: exercises that could help with an eye convergence insufficiency
: problem. Daughter has slight diffuclty in this area and would like
: to help her but without 9 months and thousand of dollars spent on
: an eye dr. any help would be appreciated

The optometrist that diagnosed my son’s over convergence gave us a copy of HTS to do at home. Maybe this would be an option for you. Their web site is located at http://www.homevisiontherapy.com/

: Does anyone know of a book, website or personal knowledge of
: exercises that could help with an eye convergence insufficiency
: problem. Daughter has slight diffuclty in this area and would like
: to help her but without 9 months and thousand of dollars spent on
: an eye dr. any help would be appreciated -My son is in therapy. He started out with a page of “random” letters. Embedded in these random letters was the alphabet in order. An example: in anktbuclgednkyte you will find abcde. He had to put a patch over one eye at a time and cross off the alphabet while he was being timed. He was not allowed to drag the pencil along the page. At first he was given big letters but as time went by the print got smaller.(excuse my spelling-spellcheck dosen’t work on this site) Exercise two. A string about 6 ft long with two large round beads of different colors. Tie one end to a door knob. One bead stays near the door knob the other is moved progressively nearer the child who holds the string to his nose. He is to look at one bead and then the other back and forth. If you look yourself you will see what looks like 2 strings going into the bead forming an x. That is what he is looking for. You keep bringing the bead closer until it is touching his nose. 3rd exercise: print two identical charts of random letters. Make one very small, the other large print. Put the large print on the door and let the child hold the small print. Then he reads three letters from the wall ,three letters from his hand back and forth. There were also a lot of 3D pictures he has to look at. I don’t know where you can find them. There is a 3D book published but I dont know if it gets the eyes to focus the way these do. My son looks crosseyed when he looks at them.

Visionaerobics software provides the picture style convergence/divergence exercises Scriabin was talking about. Cost is about $99 (price of one session of VT in some areas). I have linked its site below.Jenny

That’s odd: link didn’t show up. Here it is:http://visionaerobics/I’ll try to hotlink it below again.Jenny

Ummmm — I am a great reader, the whole shebang — high reading speed, university degrees, high test scores in many fields from math to linguistics, proofread friend’s English doctoral thesis, read *constantly* as a hobby, house collapsing under the weight of books — and I cannot do any of the exercises scriabin suggested. Literally can not. Physically unable.My daughter is also a great reader, and would also have great trouble with many of these.NOT saying these exercise are inappropriate; far from it. **In the right place with the right person at the right time** Had I had *appropriate* eye training and appropriate glasses in youth, I would be a lot less clumsy and I would be better at orienting myself in space and would maybe have been able to do more sports and participate more socially and all that. Certainly it is worth doing training if it helps the child improve focus and tracking!Please don’t misinterpret me as being against vision improvement — just the opposite, my vision was (literally) destroyed because people refused to recognize amblyopia and astigmatism when it was falling over in front of them, called it Freudian this and that; anything that can help a child avoid that is a good thing.************************************************ I am questioning if this is what is needed specifically for *reading*. ************************************************Also, if a child with my type of difficulty were given these exercises in particular, he/she would be in actual physical pain. Just thinking about the string and bead hurts. The muscles are already stressed to the max holding normal focus, and pushing them further is probably a bad idea.The “3D” exercises would be a guaranteed absolute failure (I never had any binocular vision or depth perception, period) (And I teach driver education!! Answer, I’m very careful and use coping skills). As we all know from the reading lessons, having someone pressure you to “try harder” when you simply don’t *see* is counterproductive. I cringe at the thought of being given these.The letter tracking — well, because I AM an expert reader, I can fake out these kinds of exercises. Normally I trace with a pen point if my eyes have to leave the page; or I just reread the paragraph at skimming speed until I find my place. I do this so fast you think I’m tracking, but I’m not. If you stopped me using a pointer on the two-paper one, I would memorize the code group from paper A and count its line and number of letters in on the line, then count down to the same, find the same code group, and do the same with the next code group from paper B. I can do this so fast that you think I’m tracking, but I’m not.My point in detailing all of these is that an untrained person giving these exercises can give inappropriate ones, can and will often go too far too fast, can fatigue the child or create yet one more situation of failure, or can end up training faking and coping skills rather than the intended ones.(Sometimes I get worried about so-called qualified people as well! But your chances are better than with an amateur.)****************************** And again, having taught several kids with tracking problems to read, I do question whether these particular exercises apply to *reading* specifically.

Victoria,I feel like you are more of an expert with reading than I am so I am looking forward to hearing what you think about my opinion on this matter.I think every child brings in a certain amount of skills into reading. Those kids with lots of “reading” skills and expertise in these “reading” skills are great readers. Those kids with only a few skills do not read as well. Those who don’t have a lot of skills but are strong in those skills may be good readers because they learn to compensate. I think being able to visual scan a page of words and to focus the eyes to converge on a specific word is one of those skill needed to be a good reader especially when you lack other skills. (Examples of reading skills are short term memory, long term memory, visual memory, good auditory skills, good processing speed, etc…)If a child has lots of skills but is not able to focus his eyes well, as what is required to perform these vision therapy exercises, that child may still be a strong reader. For example, you say that you do not having good visual skills but you still are a strong reader. On the other hand, a child who has visual problems, cognitive problems, auditory problems, etc., etc. may improve his ablitity to read after he improves his visual skills.I base this on my own experience with my son who lacks a couple of skills needed to read with vision being one. When we went to the eye Dr., the physisian started showing me what my son was seeing when he was reading. My son said “no, the words don’t move side to side, they move up and down”. After 3 months of doing exercises at home, he says that the words no longer move on the page. He no longer skips the small words nor does he substitutes words like “for” for “from”. Now, vision therapy hasn’t made him a expert reader. Like I said, he lacks other skills. But, it has improved his reading skills and has made reading much more enjoyable and meaningful for him.I am sold on vision therapy and feel that if a child can truely focus on a word to see it without it moving around on the page, he is going to learn it much quicker. My son did very well with the home program of exercises but my son and I work well together. That is the key to success doing it at home.Again, thank you very much for your posts. I look forward to reading them ;o)Donna: Ummmm — I am a great reader, the whole shebang — high reading
: speed, university degrees, high test scores in many fields from
: math to linguistics, proofread friend’s English doctoral thesis,
: read *constantly* as a hobby, house collapsing under the weight of
: books — and I cannot do any of the exercises scriabin suggested.
: Literally can not. Physically unable.: My daughter is also a great reader, and would also have great trouble
: with many of these.: NOT saying these exercise are inappropriate; far from it. **In the
: right place with the right person at the right time** Had I had
: *appropriate* eye training and appropriate glasses in youth, I
: would be a lot less clumsy and I would be better at orienting
: myself in space and would maybe have been able to do more sports
: and participate more socially and all that. Certainly it is worth
: doing training if it helps the child improve focus and tracking!: Please don’t misinterpret me as being against vision improvement —
: just the opposite, my vision was (literally) destroyed because
: people refused to recognize amblyopia and astigmatism when it was
: falling over in front of them, called it Freudian this and that;
: anything that can help a child avoid that is a good thing.: ************************************************ I am questioning if
: this is what is needed specifically for *reading*.
: ************************************************: Also, if a child with my type of difficulty were given these
: exercises in particular, he/she would be in actual physical pain.
: Just thinking about the string and bead hurts. The muscles are
: already stressed to the max holding normal focus, and pushing them
: further is probably a bad idea.: The “3D” exercises would be a guaranteed absolute failure
: (I never had any binocular vision or depth perception, period)
: (And I teach driver education!! Answer, I’m very careful and use
: coping skills). As we all know from the reading lessons, having
: someone pressure you to “try harder” when you simply
: don’t *see* is counterproductive. I cringe at the thought of being
: given these.: The letter tracking — well, because I AM an expert reader, I can
: fake out these kinds of exercises. Normally I trace with a pen
: point if my eyes have to leave the page; or I just reread the
: paragraph at skimming speed until I find my place. I do this so
: fast you think I’m tracking, but I’m not. If you stopped me using
: a pointer on the two-paper one, I would memorize the code group
: from paper A and count its line and number of letters in on the
: line, then count down to the same, find the same code group, and
: do the same with the next code group from paper B. I can do this
: so fast that you think I’m tracking, but I’m not.: My point in detailing all of these is that an untrained person giving
: these exercises can give inappropriate ones, can and will often go
: too far too fast, can fatigue the child or create yet one more
: situation of failure, or can end up training faking and coping
: skills rather than the intended ones.(Sometimes I get worried
: about so-called qualified people as well! But your chances are
: better than with an amateur.): ****************************** And again, having taught several kids
: with tracking problems to read, I do question whether these
: particular exercises apply to *reading* specifically.

Just to state a few things clearly, as I do want to be supportive and helpful, and certainly not start a feud(1) Yes, I DO believe those of you who say your children were helped by vision therapy.(2) I DO think *appropriate* and skilled vision therapy can help many people, and could have helped me as a child.(3) I am concerned in all fields (not just vision) when people take a small part of a program and use it without diagnosis or teacher/provider training. Before using a new program, it’s a good plan to read about it in depth, see other providers work, investigate the philosophy and science behind it, and figure out how it all goes together.As we all know from teaching reading, a good program has many parts which work together synergistically, and someone uninformed using only one bit can fail or even make things worse.(4) Several of us in the family have related visual syndromes. Our vision is *good* for reading. We focus fine in a small area and track fine over a small area of a book that is sitting still. We do not have to cope or fight; this is the easy part. It is *not* a question of having other skills to make up for the vision; the vision is absolutely fine in that area.In fact, the reverse is true; our verbal skills come largely from our habit of spending a lot of time sitting and reading, which is easy for us, while other activities as noted below are extremely difficult.(5) On the other hand, we have a very very bad time judging distance, orienting in space, separating figure/ground, sorting out relevant from irrelevant in complicated visual fields, finding things, recognizing faces, and tracking moving objects.None of these have anything to do with reading! Reading is *nice* (well, for us) because the figure-ground is so clearly defined in black and white and there are no nauseating parallax shifts and the code is always the same and the book stays put in your lap.These other skills are however most important for social relations, travel and navigation, and sports, among other things (Things I have to work hard at). It is certainly a good thing to have these skills, and any training that will help is worthwhile.(6) I assume the exercises listed were only a small sample of what the therapist/developmental optometrist does. (If not, you’re being badly overcharged!)(7) My conclusion is that vision therapy seems to be valuable, that it probably covers a lot of ground and many skills - not just reading, and that as in all medical fields it’s generally best to get a knowledgeable professional to do a diagnosis and prescription and maybe training before starting in on it.

Victoria,Right on the money as usual. One of the key pieces to success with vision training is getting the correct professional diagnosis (I also always suggest an additional opinion from an opthalmologist to rule out serious medical issues such as amblyopia, cataracts, detached retinas, etc. — if that checks out, then vt is a go). Another critical key is to have the professional prescribe the exercises and at the very least monitor progress weekly if you aren’t going to do all training in the office setting. But the most crucial aspect of all is the patient’s diligence and cooperation in doing the exercises daily. If you or your child aren’t up for that, then don’t bother. Even with the most diligent care, individual responses to vt vary unpredictably. The trouble is that you can’t tell up front who will respond best. You have to be willing to commit a set amount of time to it and see how it goes. If it works, it will help in a big way. If not, then after -say- 6 weeks, it may be time to move on to something else. There are so many factors involved in making the decision to try vt - personal finances, fees, proximity of vt, nature of vision problem. You have to do your homework upfront and still be willing to gamble.As for whether vt helps with reading: it DOESN’T TEACH reading. For those who respond well to vt, it merely clears the way so that more energy can be directed towards learning to read and less on actually trying to make sense of the chicken scratches on the page without your head swimming. You still need a talented and dedicated trained reading professional to impart reading skills. All reputable vision therapists will tell you this up front, and are usually more than willing to work together with the reading instructor to benefit the patient/client.Jenny: (7) My conclusion is that vision therapy seems to be valuable, that
: it probably covers a lot of ground and many skills - not just
: reading, and that as in all medical fields it’s generally best to
: get a knowledgeable professional to do a diagnosis and
: prescription and maybe training before starting in on it.