To LLD - son's convergence problems and vision therapy

My son has struggled with school since the beginning. At the suggestion of Rod I did as Nancy suggested you do and had my son’s vision checked by a Vision Therapist. Before I decided on a vision therapist I checked the COVD web site and talked to the therapists on the phone. I waffled for a long time but finally decided to do it.

We’ve been going every other week since the middle of September with assignments at home and I’m already noticing a difference in my son’s performance in school. He got 100% on his spelling two weeks in a row and his ability to copy from the chalkboard to a paper on his desk has improved dramatically. He still reverses letters but the VT says that will come as we work on direction (left and right).

If you want to do a simple exercise that would illustrate to you some of the problems your child is having with convergence do the following. Put a bead on a long shoelace. Have someone hold one end of the shoe lace at your eye level. (I tie it to the door handle of the refrigerator at our house.) Put bead somewhere between 12 and 18 inches from the end you are holding and then hold it up to your eye level. (Between your eyes.) Look at the bead. What do you see? If both eyes are working correctly you will see an x with the middle of the x crossing through the bead. Now have your son do this. Ask him to point to the middle of the x. If he is having convergence problems, the middle of the x will be someplace other than the bead. It may be in front of the bead or it may be behind the bead. Note: do this standing up. It is so difficult for my son that his ability to balance is affected. He is getting better though.

We move the bead up and down the string and have him make his eyes get the x to cross in the middle of the bead. We also do it with multiple beads spaced at different distances and switch focus between beads. This is supposed to help accomodation.

I’m the kind of person who must understand what and why. I’ve been reading Successful in Everything But School by G.N. Getman and have learned a lot about how much vision affects everything we do. He also explains how motor skills affect vision. The symptoms you describe regarding your son’s problems with writing seem to be classic problems of a person with vision problems. He explains how so much effort goes into just seeing that it saps the persons energy to do anything else, including concentrate. The smallest distraction in class affects their performance.

I’m no expert but I’ve seen improvement in my son’s performance in just 6 trips to the VT. At first my son complained about the exercises but they only take a few minutes a day and are different enough from homework that he doesn’t mind them. I do many of them with him.

Good luck.