My daughter started vision therapy about two weeks ago. She has been diagnosed with convergence insufficency which is being addressed now in the therapy. She also has visual processing problems. There are probably some other things (auditory processing) but her full evaluation is in early December. Anyway, the teacher wrote me a note today saying that she has noticed an increase in reversals. To the point that if she tells my daughter to go to page 25 she’ll go to page 52. She has to tell her one number at a time, often covering one number and then the other.
The increase in reversals coincided with the beginning of vision therapy. Is this coincidence? I seem to vaguely remember reading somewhere (maybe here?) that this has happened with other people and then it ended up improving after some time. Does anybody have experience with this happening? Is this a common occurrence? I do plan on bringing it up Monday night when I take her for her therapy. However, in the meantime maybe somebody here can shed some light on this?
Reversels
I agree this sounds like sequencing. I found that Interactive metrronome really helped this area for my son.
We also did exercises to address sequencing in vision therapy. It is not an issue for my son anymore. I do agree that the programs Nancy cites would also help. We actually did things that seem to come from these programs in vision therapy but I don’t think all optometrists address this area.
I would talk to the optometrist about this.
One other thing to note. I found that with my son often before a major breakthrough he took 2 steps back to go one forward. I had talked with the optometrist about this and he said it is typical for a child to go into stage of disequilibrium (for lack of a better word) before a positive breakthrough.
Re: vision therapy causing more reversals?
Thank you Linda and Nancy. Would you recommend starting another therapy like IM while doing the vision therapy? I was thinking that the IM would really help her (and maybe some others) after reading so many positive things here but I was hesitant to start something new right now. Right now my daughter goes to the office once a week for therapy and works at home three days a week. I didn’t want to overload her with therapy all the time. Is this something I should not wait to do? Her VT will last a few months just to deal with the physical issue of the convergence. After that the doctor wants reevaluate her and then address the visual processing problems through more therapy.
Sequencing is an issue for her as are all areas of visual processing. She scored extremely low in all areas—right left awareness, processing speed, form perception, visual memory, and visual motor skills. I do believe there is more to this picture. For example, the speech language person at her school tested her for auditory processing and sent me a letter to meet with her to discuss a plan. This tells me she found something of concern. Of course, I will meet with her. Attention/distraction is also an issue but I don’t know if it’s a result of the other problems or a separate component of its own. However, I am having private testing done so that I can have all results kind of tied together instead of piece meal as it is now. Besides, if I wait for the child study team at her school I’ll be waiting months! The speech language evaluation was supposed to take two weeks and by the time we sit down when we are scheduled to meet it will have been SIX weeks!
Hi
I would say to do IM before vision therapy if possible. My son’s optometrist knows about IM and does recommend it to some kids before VT. I just think if attention is an issue you can see gains in attention with IM and that will allow the child to focus better on the vision exercises. Talk to the optometrist about this. It should be decision you make together.
We saw great results with IM and VT. My son’s visual perception scores went up an average of 8-9 years in 7 months with VT. We did work hard and took it very seriously.
Re: vision therapy causing more reversals?
You might want to check out the thread on DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) up in the Reading Board. This might be a good alternative to IM while you continue on with VT.
I do think it’s possible to overload a child with therapies. IM is a great therapy, but it’s also very boring.
Personally, I would go with DDR for now and, if attention and motor skills are still major issues after VT, follow up VT with IM and then a cognitive skills training program.
Nancy
Re: vision therapy causing more reversals?
IM is boring but my son really liked it. He liked the numbers and the concrete way of knowing he was getting better. I actually felt like we got the most bang for our buck and time from IM than from any therapy we’ve done (and we’ve done lots).
OTH, the dance revolution thing looks like great fun and I am going to look into it. If nothing else, you don’t have to drive them anywhere!!!
Beth
Re: vision therapy causing more reversals?
This is wierd. I had a post last night that was accepted and now it is gone! I can’t remember all that I said but— I don’t think I’m comfortable stopping VT to start something new because right now we have to address the physical problem with my daughter’s eyes (convergence insufficiency). I don’t think anything else can really help her until we know for sure she can physically see correctly. As of now, her eye pain has gone away but she still occasionally sees double.
I do like the idea of the Dance Dance Revolution. I’m thinking Santa could get involved in this one!
This sounds like a problem with sequencing skills. Children who have had visual efficiency problems lack normal practice in sequencing. When a child isn’t seeing clearly, lack of sequencing skills isn’t so noticeable. It may be that your daughter is seeing a little more clearly now, so her lack of sequencing skills is becoming more obvious.
It is often a good idea to follow up vision therapy with a cognitive skills training program such as Audiblox or PACE. These programs work on development of many cognitive skills — including visual sequencing and visual short-term memory, auditory sequencing and auditory short-term memory, attention, pattern recognition, etc. They are very efficient at developing visual processing skills, including sequencing.
Nancy