Vision Therapy???

A couple of months ago I noticed something in my daughter that I never saw before. She would spell her words

backwards on paper but when I asked her to spell it out loud she would spell it correctly.  When we did her math

homework she would start the problem from  to left to right instead of right to left. Simple words like AND would be

spelled ADH or THAT CAT would be read THE HAT her NUMBER 10 WAS 01. I was a little concerned because she is

8 yrs old and usually this confusion of words and/or the misspelling of them are “grown out of”.  Basically she was too

old for this to be happening . With that being said I thought maybe she has dyslexia. After talking to my pediatrician

and her teacher I was referred to SUNY College of Optometry for some extensive tests.

The end result? She has 20/20 vision but was diagnosed with Convergence insufficiency

(convergenceinsufficiency.org) and Saccadic Eye Movement Deficiency.

She was referred to vision therapy once a week to help the problem and further tests would be done to see if she has

dyslexia. My family listened as I tried to explain to them the testing process and the therapy sessions….but they didn’t

get it. I know in their minds I was just an over worried mom who took one incident waaay to far. But as THE mother

I trusted my instincts and moved forward with the plan. Thankfully, The New York Times wrote an  article about

vision Therapy in a parenting blog called “Fixing Kids” With Vision Therapy – Motherlode Blog – NYTimes.com.  I was

able to refer to the  NY Times blog anytime someone had a question. I no longer had to explain to them the trials and

tests my child had to go through while they gave me looks of confusion. I’m so happy she is going. She has improved

tremendously in all areas.

There are thousands of people in the world that have dyslexia and other eye tracking issues and are probably oblivious

to it!!!  They go through life unaware of their impediment. However my own question was what kind of parent was

I???   Was I the type who sends my child to school everyday knowing shes having a hard time understanding what

shes reading? Would I allow her to get left behind because her eyes couldn’t see what the other children could?

Allowing her to just “get by” in school…IN LIFE!!! When I know she could be an A’ student ?

I had the resources and the coverage plan. No I am not that kind of parent. She and I were gonna fight this thing

together one session at a time.

CC