Rotation Board/Balametrics

The rotational board is used to address vestibular issues. We used it for awhile, successfully, and no longer own it. (I was given the option of selling it used to another client). My son would spin himself on it in one direction and then the other—he found it hard at first.

The balance board is a much more general piece of equipment and one that I will hold onto. You can do all sorts of things on it—there are lots of ideas on the tape that comes with it and we, of course, have done many more. Right now he is throwing a ball up in the air and catching it—while following it with his eyes.

Beth

Where can you buy this?

Try a search on the web with Balametrics. It is a therapy centered around the balance board. Comes with a video tape and lots of exercises. Neuronet incorporates ballametrics into it but is a worthwhile therapy in its own right.

Beth

Hi Beth,
I have looked into Balametrics in the past, but made my own “balance board” (more like a teeter-totter). I’m sure it’s not as effective, and, of course, I don’t have the exercises from the Balametrics program, but since I’m not entirely sure Balametrics would be useful for my son (from what I’ve read the focus is on visual perceptual therapy…maybe I’m wrong?), I held off on purchasing it.

One thing I’ve been having my son do which seems to address vestibular balance is teaching him to ride a skateboard. It seems so simple. I grew up with a big brother who rode skateboards and surfed so I learned to do these things and remember spending hours learning to do tricks on a skateboard.

At our previous house we had no sidewalks so my kids never did this, but now we do have lots of sidewalks where we live so it’s time they learned!

It’s kind of funny because I’ve only taken my son out a few times so far (he doesn’t particularly like skateboarding). But I have him in full protective gear with a helmet and all kinds of wrist guards, knee pads, elbow pads, etc… (something I never wore! Looking back I can’t believe I never fell down and broke a wrist or split my head open!!!). He stands on the skateboard, I run alongside him holding loosely onto his arm, but prepared to grab him at any moment. When he stops he’ll put his foot on the tail so the nose of the skateboard goes up (here’s where we’re working on vestibular balance!) and then he’ll turn the skateboard around (I’m still, loosely as possible, holding on).

I don’t know if this could be considered “therapeutic,” but I do think it may be helpful to him in some way.

I am sure your homemade balance board is useful, as well as cheaper. I looked at their website though and there is a whole lot addressed other than visual perceptual activities. Basically, the theory is to work on sensory integration, beginning with the balance system. You might take a look and get some ideas.

http://www.balametrics.com

I’d wonder about whether your son has the foundational skills necessary for skateboarding if he doesn’t like it. I think it is a kid friendly activity, for those who can do it. My son has tried it so can’t comment on ability but I know he couldn’t do things like jump on a pogo stick or walk on stilts before therapy. He’d make up excuses but bottom line was he was incapable of learning.

Beth

What other regular fun activities might address these areas of deficiencies?

I’m specifically wondering what activites besides reading, might improve visual tracking and other visual skills?

PS. my son is obsessed with standing on his hands since he finished Interactive Metronome and its amazing how well he is doing with it.

What about the tried and true “boy” favorites, like car racing videogames and skateboarding video games? Activities like rollerblading, biking, skateboarding and snow skiing work on balance.

//

I think the object of therapy is to get the kid to the place that they can benefit from “normal” activities. Then the normal activities help continue the growth. My son now loves to walk on stilts and jump on a pogo stick. He does tricks on his scooter and rides his bike slow and then fast (some game of his). He loves P.E. now—told me that it is like having recess twice. He loves video games now too–and I think they have improved his hand-eye coordination.

But before we started down the therapy route, he simply was incapable of learning to do many “kid” activities. Other activities he learned to compenstate—he always rode his bike fast and we didn’t initially realize he was incapable of riding it slow (he also rode his bike into a car a couple years ago—only the care was damaged—I don’t think he perceived where it was).

Beth

My friend successfully remediated her son’s tracking issues. She swears by dot to dot books.

My son is doing piano and is really doing better than I had anticipated. I can really see how it would help bilateral coordination issues. He has to use his right and left hand switching back and forth based on the visual cues.

He just loves the piano. Woke up this morning early just to play it. I really think that IM awakened (for lack of a better word) something in his brain.

My son does not skateboard but I am going to try to spark an interest. There is a new skateboard park that we will go to next week.

I think alot of these issues can be dealt with by having the child do everyday things that build skills like balance and coordination.

I also saw a sign for private art lessons. I am going to think about this one. I have to think that learning to draw would help his visual spatial issues. He gets intimidated learning art in a group because his skill is so below age level.

I thought of others.

My son’s therapist seemed to believe he would benefit from playing board games. She specificly mentioned chinese checkers. He doesn’t like chinese checkers and neither do I. He does play chess and backgammon with his dad. He will also play checkers but I think he likes games that require a little more strategy. He likes clue and monopoly as well.

He also likes to play blackjack. This was good to help him get his addition math facts down. It is funny, he will find a game and get really into it or he will not want to play it at all.

We are thinking of getting a ping pong table for the basement. Ping pong is great for eye hand coordination.

I didn’t mean to sound flippant about the therapy! Just can’t fit it all in, and of course we have to prioritize. I don’t think my son would have been able to ride a bike with out a year of OT first. But we were lucky he liked to swim from very early on which I think has helped with his bilateral coordination.

You can tell I’m hoping we don’t need to do VT. Alot of his tracking issues have improved from practice, and maybe maturity, and maybe IM?Its much better, but when he’s tired his eyes give out.

Remember the books we used as kids. You follow the numbers to connect the dots to make a picture. The ones they have now can have hundreds of dots that need to be connected to complete the picture.

I odered something from www.balmetrics.com that is supposed to work on tracking. I will let you know if it works. I considered buying the whole thing but I thought I would try this first. Balmetrics is the closest thing I have found to in home sensory integration therapy.

Linda,
What did you purchase that is suppose to help with tracking?

This is a very interesting discussion, and as usual, I learn so much from all of you. I’ve been wondering if my son actually has a tracking problem or not. He can catch a ball very well and is extremely good at video games (He has friends who invite him over to help them “finish off a level.” Yet, I rarely let him play because I worry that it might be harmful for his eyes — and who has time anyway!!!).

Which brings me back to wondering if my own child’s reading difficulties are visual or some type of memory problem. Sometimes I try to get him to explain to me what he sees. I even asked him last night. I said, “When you look at a word is it out of focus or unclear at first, for a very short moment?” (maybe he’s having difficulty focusing?). “Or do you forget the sounds?” He gets upset when I ask him about this. He says he doesn’t know or he can’t explain it. And yet I just keep thinking if I could only figure this out I’d have a better idea what direction to take.

Like Karen, I’m not totally convinced at this point that vision therapy is the right direction.

If you don’t want to get him diagnosed by a vision therapist you might want to do the tests in Jerome Rosner’s book, “Helping Children Overcome Learning Difficulties.” When I did those it was apparent my son’s problem was visual and not auditory.
This was something I kind of knew already but it became crystal clear when I did those tests. He couldn’t get past the kindergarten level on the shapes. His auditory tests were fine but I think some of that had to do with phonographix. I think phonographix helps to remediate auditory perception issues to some degree. I know if he had done those tests before phonographix he would have tested as a child with a severe auditory perception problem. (It was interesting in my research on reading I found that the reading reflex people studied Rosner’s work.)

I went to www.balametrics.com and look at the individual tools. There is one that works specificly on saccadic eye movements which I know my son has a problem with because he was tested by a developmental optomotrist. I am considering doing a more in depth balametrics therapy with him at home but I wanted to try this first. It costs $69. The more complete kit costs over $200. Before I try that out I thought I would just try to this one tool.
The people who started neuronet based the program on balametrics according to the site. Neuronet is not available in my area so I am guessing this is the next best thing. I also think that therapy is something that should be done every day to be effective and who can pay for therapy every day.
I will let everyone know how it goes.

I too was very hesitant about vision therapy. My daughter’s vision was 20/20. I had never heard of vision therapy before encountering it on this bulletin board. I had been warned against questionable practices -colored overlays, eye exercises, etc. by the reading specialist who sucessfully taught her to read in a month in the summer between 2nd and 3rd grade. But the reading tutor did agreee with me that there was something “funny” with my daughter, visually. I put it off. But the tired eyes, unable to read for very long, continued. Two incidents in 3rd grade, related by her teacher, made me rethink. First she was trying to cut graph paper into math groups and couldn’t navigate the cutting although she had no problems with math or cutting. The teacher described it as being “at sea”. Second time she copying a science drawing with labels and made a complete mirror image. Encouraged by Jenny on this board, I found a developmental optometrist who picked up the convergance problems right away. We did a crash course-twice daily exercises for tracking, at home. Within six weeks her reading went from “how many minutes left?” to “let me finish my chapter”.
My daughter still has a specific language processing disorder and ADD but her ability to visually focus on an object is no longer a problem. We maintain with eye exercises once a month. Depending on the problem, you maybe able to do the therapy at home. The dr. had the balance beams and boards, etc, to do different vision-motor things. If you suspect a vision problem or want to rule out a vision problem, do not hesitate to find an experienced developmental optometrist. The initial eye testing is generally covered by insurance.
Good luck.

could you give a clue what these really are?

Hi Linda,
I did have him tested by an optomotrist. I guess the one thing that has me questioning whether vision therapy would help is because many of the results were in the superior range. And yet, as typical with my son, some we low. Here’s a list of the low ones:

Binocularity (eye-teaming)-reduced ability
Focusing skills-significantly reduced (I guess this answers my question!)
Bilaterial integraion (very weak-5 years)
Reversal frequency (very weak-6 years)
Tachistoscope (Dynamic Visual Sequential Memory) - 1%ile
Visual Motor Integration (6.8 yrs or 23%ile) — how is it my son can rock on the balance board and catch a tennis ball thrown at him really fast???

His problems do appear to be weakness in visual motor and gross motor areas. I wonder if Balametrics would help with this?

One thing that worried me about the test results, is when I looked at the scoring sheets I noticed that the results had been changed (some were crossed out). I didn’t question this at the time (like I should have), but it seemed strange and made me wonder about the accuracy.

If I felt confident about vision therapy, I’d sign my son up. But I’m just not too sure it’s what he needs. The therapy is quite expensive and I can’t help wondering if IM might not be more effective. I’m trying to weigh my choises. Of course, time is passing by too! If IM were conveniently located I’d start my son right away, but, unfortunately distance is an issue. I may need to wait until summer.

In the meantime we do a lot of “home therapy.” I may try to find some exercises specifically for the problems listed above.

Can you please tell me more about Specific Language Processing Disorder. How was your daughter diagnosed and what were the symptoms?

Thanks!

I will let the testing pros give the long answer to this. The short answer is that the diagnosis of dyslexia does not exist in our area. Specific language processing deficit is considered to be the more precise term- or so I was told. What’s in a name? Its more - how do I help my kid? But your school psych will have a more precise answer.

One exercise that Jenny recommended to me was circle e. I have since seen the same basic exercise in a lot of formats including school. Basically, you have a child underline a sentence until the come to an e and then they circle the e. You have them do it with one eye patched, then the other, and then neither eye patched. As I recall, Jenny recommended working up to about a total of 20 minutes.

My son at the time could not read so I just used an old book. She used an old German text book.

Now I have to tell you that this did not solve my son’s tracking problems. His problems, as it turns out, were complicated by him moving his head rather than just his eyes. Over time he learned to be very good at this and other eye exercises (we saw an OD for therapy). But he really needed a whole body approach which the OD did not have.

We finally are licking the problem with OT like therapy.

But for kids with a less complicated presentation ( and I think both Mary and Jenny’s girls fell into this category), this is a good exercise.

Beth

Still, I think it would be worth a try for a kid with mild problems.

Sorry, looks like I have messed up the order of the posts-its hard to tell in flat view. The reason I asked if Jenny or MaryMn were still around is that Jenny had a wonderful set of links for vision questions. She also described a series of tracking exercises eg circling e’s-child follows baseline of text and circles each e without lifting highliter. She used an old german text bought at a flea market because the object is to track not read. Our dr. gave us a smiliar sheet of nonsense words the object was to circle a then b then c etc. the sheet was devised so that if you missed one you didn’t come to z at end. We were given several with different content and in different fonts and sizes. We used a plastic cover and had her use dry erase pens. Others exercises were a tangle of lines - she had to eye trace the line from start and identify which line at ended at which spot. ( hard to describe but very easy to draw, similiar to those follow the path puzzles). The main one that we did 2x daily was a sponge ball on a string that we wrote large letters on. The ball was suspended and swung side to side, to and fro then circularly while the child followed with both eyes and called out the letters visible on the ball (ball rotates slightly and so the letters continually ‘change’). Be sure your optometrist specializes in developmental optometry. You should have been offered some exercises for your child’s particular problems Consider another practioner. Be upfront-tell them you need to do a home based program. I have come to believe that some of the ‘snake oil’ repuation comes from disreputable folks in the field. Jenny always recommended the http://www.covd.org site to find a practioner and I did find one that I was comfortable with- 60 miles from home.She also always stated that vision therapy would NOT fix processing problems/dyslexia. However it is obviously easier to remediate reading problems when the child can easily see the text! Do a google search on visiion therapy there is a lot of information on the web. I no longer have Jenny’s list of links. Hope this helps.

Beth and mmm,

thanks a lot- that gave me an idea. I do not even need to go to a flee market- juts get one of my Polish books to begin with :-)

I will look up the dev. optometrists from the Web page you recommended.

If you find exercise let us know. I like the circle e exercise and tried to do it with my son. He hated it!!!!

I think I will focus on that particular exercise for awhile. IM will not really cure your son’s focusing and other eye issues. It should help with the motor component and maybe processing.
I did the visual perception exercises in Rosner’s book. After that and IM my son could read charts and graphs for the first time. I am not 100% sure if it was IM or the visual perception exercises. I don’t think IM really helped with the eye tracking issues because he still tires easily when reading.

I would see if you could consult with the vision therapist. Tell him or her that you are low on funds and are very capable of doing exercises with your son. Maybe they will outline a program that you can do at home for a one time fee. Or maybe they will let him go once every few weeks with you doing the exercises the rest of the time at home. Call around and see if you can find someone who is willing to help.
You are so creative and inventive at helping your son! I am convinced that with some guidance from the right professional you could do most of it on your own.

Some simpler exercises I did for tracking with my son—type out letters in rows and enlarge them. Have him read rows—right to left like reading. Do it with each eye patched and then with both eyes. Make the letters large enough that he can do it without straining.

If he hates circle e, probably means he is not ready for it. We did the above and then did circle e. The above was from the OD. I then used Jenny’s exercise. As I said, it did not resolve all his issues because fundamentally his tracking issues seem to be connected to body differentiation. But I think it would have done it for a kids with a different profile. So it is worth a try.

Beth

that the way we did this exercise was for me to hold the page 3 or 4 feet away. Eventually we pasted on back of door. I am not sure if you couldn’t do same thing by just letting him hold it but the protocol was for him to be standing.

Beth