Mirror Writing

My son was in a private school for learning differences last year (4th grade). We put him there because he struggled to read, write and complete work his work. He wrote a complete spelling test backwards one day in cursive including heading with his name and date and class. It was very strange looking. His teacher thought he did it on purpose to be oppositional because he was frustrated most of the time. However, he had to exert so much energy in order to write at all that there is no way he would have exerted the tremendous energy it would have taken him to write it mirror image.

Anyway, that same year he was diagnosed to be dyslexic by Scottish Rite Hospital in Dallas, TX. This year I am homeschooling him and I took him to have a developmental vision evaluation by an optometrist who specializes in vision therapy. He does have developmental vision delays. His vision delays may be the only reason for his dyslexia. I’m not sure yet. We will see when vt is complete. He is in his 6th month of vision therapy now. He had a lot of problems recognizing right and left as well, which I think has something to do with his visual processing. He doesn’t have right/left problems anymore since we work a lot on this with vision therapy as well as tracking, focusing, etc.

One other thing, my son was also going to a nutritionist last year and was tested to be allergic to apples and sugar intolerant. I have read that some kids that are allergic to apples (or other foods) would write mirror image or big and off the lines, etc. I don’t think he ate any apple the day he wrote this way though.

Now I am wondering if food sensitivities and intolerances could play a part in developmental vision delays.

I would definitely suggest the parents take this child in for a vision evaluation. Maybe someone else knows if there could be a connection between vision delays and food sensitivities.

Gina

Dear Gina,
I have been investiagating vision therapy recently and have found that there is no research to support that it is effective. In fact, the Amer. Academy of Pediatrics and the Amer. Academy of Opthalmologists, and the Amer. Acad of Ped Opthalmologists put out a joint position paper on the subject stating, in essence, it is not effective. You can get a copy from the International Dyslexia Assoc.

Have you checked any of these?
http://www.vision-therapy.com/vt_research_studies.htm and http://www.childrensvision.com/studies_and_research.htm.

Cathy,

You wrote: “I have been investigating vision therapy recently and have found that there is no research to support that it is effective.”

This is simply not factual. There is a ton of research, but it is not found in the reading journals generally, and it is definitely not found in the opthalmology journals. In fact, these two groups (the phonologically-oriented reading researchers and the opthalmologists) are simply protecting their respective turfs when they claim there is no research supporting vision therapy.

You will need to go to the journals published for the behavioral optometrists, and optometry generally, if you are going to find much research supporting vision therapy. They have, for instance, thoroughly answered the “research” underlying the position paper that you referred to in the rest of your post.

Please understand that I’m not saying that the vision therapy research is all top-notch (it isn’t) or that it indisputably supports vision therapy, but there is research out there and a lot of it makes for very interesting reading…..Rod

This is one case where yes, really, there’s solid research supporting the optometrists but the ophthalmologists don’t care to acknowledge it. It’s just counter to most opthal’s whole approach to vision, as well as, of course, competing with them.

I truly am open minded about this and I would greatly appreciate the substantive, scientific research references you are aware of that demonstrate that vision therapy has a positive impact on remediating reading difficulties. Thank you

Rod frequently posts and gives references to sites with research results. I do not know how independent they are — you will have to check. Read over his old posts over the last six nonths or so (use the search option at the top of the page) for a lot of experience and personal teaching results as well as the research sites.

All through school I had a problem with a lazy eye and had to cover over one eye to read. The opthamologists I went to year after year never had any problem with that They said it wasn’t severe enough for surgery. In fact in 12th grade one doctor suggested my problems were psychological. In college I went to an optometrist who discovered I needed glasses. No more covering one eye unless I’m really over-tired. My son was having similar symptoms. The optometrist said he had convergence insufficiency. I took him to an opthamologist for a second opinion. The exam was a joke in comparrison to the optometrists. She had him look at her finger for a few seconds and said - no problem. With my own lazy eye, the eye did not start to go out until I had read several pages of print and I always passed those tests as a child. Anyway, the vision therapy helped him to read very small print which he could not do before. He jumped from reading 2nd grade material to 5th grade material very quickly. Unfortunately, he’s still skipping/missreading small function words and I’m still searching for an answer. _this controversy reminds me of the negative opinions you will get from doctors on Chiropractic. While I don’t think Chiropractors can cure the common cold, I can tell you from much personal experience they can be great when your back won’t let you get out of bed in the morning and you don’t have to worry about adverse reactions from medications.

>
> Dear Gina,
> I have been investiagating vision therapy recently and have
> found that there is no research to support that it is
> effective. In fact, the Amer. Academy of Pediatrics and the
> Amer. Academy of Opthalmologists, and the Amer. Acad of Ped
> Opthalmologists put out a joint position paper on the subject
> stating, in essence, it is not effective. You can get a copy
> from the International Dyslexia Assoc.