After years of asking my daughter’s teachers, preschool teachers, child care teachers etc, why her drawing and writing was so poor and if she is behind her peers, I have ended up taking her to see a private behavioural optometrist and a private OT. We are still in the midst of assessment, but it seems like she has definate areas of concern in visual processing (auditory processing not tested yet) and some fine motor skill problems.She tested at 1% for form constancy, 1% visual sequencing and 10% for visual closure. At the optometrist she did a test where she had to read 6 lines of 5 digits and was timed. She was slower with each line (which I gather is not normal) and by the third set she couldn’t even track the lines anymore. However she has good vision and tracking of a light etc. She is in grade 2 (Australia), can read (slower than peers)and has finally learnt most of her sight words from grade 1. Her teachers regard her as bright, but hard to keep ‘on track’.I don’t really understand what the problem is, what her world is like, what we can do, what her prospects are with OT and other help. I don’t even know what to call it and what questions to ask.I just know that I am sad that I have been asking questions for so long and only now getting anywhere.Anyone have any advice?Joanne
My daughter has severe congenital astigmatism that was not diagnosed until age 3. She would have developed amblyopia (lazy eye blindness) without corrective eyeglasses. For years, her highly respected opthalmologist pooh-poohed my concerns about her vision affecting her ability to read. Finally, at age 8-1/2, when she was still at a preschool level in reading, I took her to a certified developmental optometrist. She had severe developmental vision delays, probably related to the severe congenital astigmatism.It’s a shame, but your story is actually a good-case scenario. A lot of children never get assessed appropriately and go through life unnecessarily handicapped.We did vision therapy for 6 months, which brought all vision skills to age-appropriate levels on the tests. We followed up with PACE (http://www.learninginfo.com), which quickly developed the fine visual processing skills my daughter had gone without for so many years.The good news is that interventions help a lot. At age 10-1/2 my dd now reads text fluently at 5th grade level. We are still remediating associated problems — she’s still not an avid reader for pleasure, and her spelling is very poor — but a lot of the anxiety about reading has been removed.Mary: After years of asking my daughter’s teachers, preschool teachers,
: child care teachers etc, why her drawing and writing was so poor
: and if she is behind her peers, I have ended up taking her to see
: a private behavioural optometrist and a private OT. We are still
: in the midst of assessment, but it seems like she has definate
: areas of concern in visual processing (auditory processing not
: tested yet) and some fine motor skill problems.: She tested at 1% for form constancy, 1% visual sequencing and 10% for
: visual closure. At the optometrist she did a test where she had to
: read 6 lines of 5 digits and was timed. She was slower with each
: line (which I gather is not normal) and by the third set she
: couldn’t even track the lines anymore. However she has good vision
: and tracking of a light etc. She is in grade 2 (Australia), can
: read (slower than peers)and has finally learnt most of her sight
: words from grade 1. Her teachers regard her as bright, but hard to
: keep ‘on track’.: I don’t really understand what the problem is, what her world is
: like, what we can do, what her prospects are with OT and other
: help. I don’t even know what to call it and what questions to ask.: I just know that I am sad that I have been asking questions for so
: long and only now getting anywhere.: Anyone have any advice?: Joanne