Visual LD

Go over to Teaching Reading and Homeschooling boards; there’s a huge stack of discussion on visual handicaps, vision therapy, etc., plus a wealth of online contacts, both posters on the board and websites. (Rod is especially helpful about vision therapy) As always on the net, BUYER BEWARE — do not take all claims of fact at face value! A lot of snake-oil gets sold out there.

By the way, my daughter was diagnosed as visually handicapped with a retinal problem in elementary school — damage to her retinas, probably from repeated high fevers and appendicitis complications.
Although her Grade 1 teachers were good, her Grades 2-3 teachers were as counter-productive as they could be, insisting on her wearing glasses (they did no good as the problem was in the back of the eye, in the retina, not in the front in the lens), handing out faded purple dittos on greyish paper, insisting on her writing in pencil which she couldn’t see (needed contrast and also couldn’t control her hands with pressure), putting vital class information handwritten on 8 1/2 x 11 paper across the room which was totally invisible to her, putting extra reading across the room in a box she couldn’t see or get to, and so on. Luckily I had taught her to read in English and her good Grade 1 teachers had taught her to read in French, so she did well despite this obstructivism; however her math and her attitude did suffer badly. She is still very slow with her multiplication facts which were supposed to be taught by the most obstructive teacher in Grade 3, and she still has a problem with confidence, which as a gifted student she certainly shouldn’t have.
Her retinas have regained quite a lot with general health and the amazing natural power of recovery, and she has learned to cope with a sort of fuzziness (she says she doesn’t see sharp edges, and spiderwebs are absolutely invisible). She drives a car safely and is a good university student, although the math and confidence did come back to haunt her and she quit a science major, which I am sorry for.

I tell you this story to point out some approaches which can lead to success or failure with your student. I succeeded in teacheing her to read very very well in English, because I got close to her and taught directly with clear materials and dark markers to write with, and who cares if the letters are two inches high?. Her grade 1 teachers and first grade 2 teacher taught her to speak and read very well in French and to have good number sense and add and subtract and carry and borrow and to print a little more clearly, using a good phonics program and visually clear materials. But her replacement Grade 2 teacher and Grade 3 teacher gave her life-long problems by using visually unclear materials and trying to hammer everyone into the same pigeonholes of behaviour. The meeting where the principal told me they wanted to “slow her down” to “make her normal” was a lost cause …

Anyway, in your case, first it would be a good idea to find out what your student’s actual problems are and what is needed to cope.
Some general, simple, low-tech coping methods: In a large number of cases writing with a nice dark marker, large, on clean white paper, is a much better way to do written work. Sure, you use a few hundred sheets of paper; that is NOT waste, but legitimate use, especially compared to wasting even more years of her childhaood and education. She may need magnifying lenses — encourage finding, or try to find yourself, good quality glass ones; the plastic sheets provide a wobbly and fuzzy view which is little help. Be sure she has good light. If possible, get her direct natural sunlight, whiuch is what our eyes were designed for and work best in (My daughter suffers in fluorescent light — and the best high school in the county had no windows 1970’s style; the kids were overjoyed when they had classes in temporary classrooms, which allowed you to go outside and to have windows.) If you are one of those people who have been trained to close all the blinds and make the class cave-like and artificial, please re-consider. Assign her a seat at the front of the class from day one and don’t make a fuss over it. Make sure your handouts are clear, if possible avoiding faded purple dittos. Try using a photocopier and enlarging her work 200%, making one page into two; again, not a waste of paper, but an investment in her life. Read over instructions with her beside her desk, pointing not only to the word but to the individual letters/sounds in the word, to help her develop reading skills and understand content-oriented reading. (You can often do this as you go over the instructions to the class.) If you put instructions on the board, make them large and clear and be sure that she sees them; read them over with her, or if she cannot see the board, make her a paper copy.

As far as the math, the common mistake is to try to rush. People get so fired up over “covering the material” and “working on grade level” that they lose track of the fact that the child is working by pure imitation without any understanding; then later the student wastes even more time having to go back to the beginning anyway. Understand the concept first, get it right, practice until it’s automatic, and *then* go forward to the next big concept. This way she will catch up for real, even if it does take a few years. You will have to get lower-level materials for her to work on to catch up; you may get some from the school, or you may have to order them yourself. If you do *anything* yourself, get the parents’ permission in writing first.

A few of the things that I use to help my child work on his visual perception difficulties.
For remediation,
Chinese checkers also regular checkers and chess
legos
Dot to Dot books
Maze books
Shape puzzles (found a book at the local toy store)
Form drawings. check out www.callirobics.com
Handwriting without tears
He reads well despite his deficits thanks to Phonographix (the book is called reading reflex)
He is getting the magnification lenses from the optomotrist.
My friends son saw a huge improvement from those lenses. We shall see what they do for my son.

To get him the content he needs I try to use his auditory strengths.

Books on tapes (His listening comprehension is extremely high)
Reciting math facts without visual cues. When I introduce flash cards he pushes them away. He does much better when allowed to learn through his auditory strengths. He understands the concepts but he needed the math facts as well.
I have heard the reading the child tests helps.
Don’t make the child look to the front of the room. Too much visual input throws their concentration off. I had to tell his teacher to allow him to look down.

I am sure there are others that I am forgetting at this minute.

Thank you for being a wonderful teacher. Anyone who would take the time to find out what one child really needs is a great teacher.

It would really depend on the complete diagnosis. My son was dx with Eye Teaming, Focusing and Visual Processing Difficulties. While he was looking at a shape that involved more than one shape, he couldn’t draw it or pick the same shape from another page. This involved visual memory. The therapy used to remediate the eye teaming/focusing issues corrected most of this. We still work with therapy where he works on a computer program where he has a 5 letter/number series flashed on the screen and he has to type it back in…or a 3 letter/number series that is flashed and then a flying bird comes on the screen and he has to type that series in.

In school, copying from board to paper was limited until his therapy was completed. He also had preferential seating. He also used a “window”-a large index card with a window cut into it the size of a sentence at about 16 font size and the card was laminated. In 2nd grade he scored a 47 Nationally on the Reading Comprehension section of the CAT (with a 99 in Math as a contrast) and this year in 4th grade he scored a 91 Nationally so there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We found initially that reading something silently, and then again orally did wonders because he learned to pick up on the mistakes that he made. He originally would create words that didn’t exists because he was reading 2 words at once, sometimes from different lines. This where the “window” came in handy as a reading tool.

There is a wonderful book called “20/20 Is Not Enough” that gives a lot of insight on vision problems other than the “normal” farsightedness and nearsightedness. Since this is a medical problem, if she is seeing a Developmental Optometrist, he/she could be an invaluable source of information. I would hope that her parents have her in therapy. I would also assume (even though we know what that means) that she is receiving OT at school, and the OT may have some more suggestions.