When L came home from China, she had a variety of delays, but didn’t qualify for Early Intervention. I have been keeping an eye on her milestones and while she is still in the range of normal for most things, I have always wondered if maybe– just maybe– she is still struggling to catch up a little. The problem was that I could never exactly pinpoint what exactly the problem was. In most things she is fine, but she had a few nagging issues that never seemed to have anything to do with each other at all.
When it came time to select a preschool, we enrolled L in the preschool is run by our local school district as a developmental preschool. Kids with all kinds of developmental delays go there, but about 50% of the kids are typical peer role models. We thought this would be great for L. Even though she was a peer role model, there is a lot of developmental work going on in the class for all the children.
About a month ago, I had L’s very first parent-teacher conference. L’s teacher clearly likes her a lot. (Maybe too much, actually. She tends to think everything L does is charming even when she is not doing what she is supposed to do.) I think if you asked the teacher, she would say L’s conference was a good one. She had lots of good things to say about L.
I, on the other hand, thought that L’s conference was a warning shot across the bow. In particular, there was on comment that set off all kinds of warning bells for me: “Well, L has a hard time staying on task…She is too young for a diagnosis, but she really doesn’t pay attention as well as the other kids her age. Especially when we are doing table work.”
Huh.
Too young for a diagnosis, but clearly the teacher was implying that she thought L was leaning toward ADD.
We also looked over some developmental tests that all the children were given. The teacher mentioned a few unusual results that came up with L. In particular, in one she was supposed to trace a cross. At her age, it is expected that she would trace it from top to bottom and left to right ( or the opposite). Instead, L traced each of the four sections of the X by starting about an inch from the center and drawing outward. She missed the middle entirely. The teacher also told me that she evaluated L has being slightly right-handed. I thought that was crazy because L has been favoring her left hand for eating and drawing ever since we met her. We also discussed L’s rather unimpressive fine motor skills.
I went home from that conference quite bothered.
Armed with those test results and Dr. Google, it didn’t take more than about 15 minutes to make an amateur diagnosis. I decided that L had a visual processing disorder which is one kind of Sensory Processing Disorder. The information I found could explained all the random issues that had been niggling in the back of my brain and the comments from her teacher. I was also not surprised to learn that visual processing problems can be related to a lack of tummy time and stimulation in infancy.
I got busy finding a pediatric/behavioral optometrist who could do the full spectrum of vision testing necessary to figure out what was going on. Regular eye exams just cover eyesight. This exam looks at how the brain processes the information the eyes are gathering.
Long story short, today L completed her eye screening and they confirmed that she definitely does have a visual processing problem. More specifically, she has a pretty significant problem with tracking. Her eyes skip and hiccup when she tries to follow moving things. She also showed at least a 9 month delay in Visual Motor Integration. Add those issues to L’s reluctance to cross her midline and not so great fine motor skills, well, it is clear we are going to be spending time in therapy.
The eye doctor is recommending Vision Therapy. Twice a week for a minimum of three months and maybe as long as as TWELVE months. I was shocked that the monthly cost is going to be about $575. I was not shocked to learn that neither our vision or medical insurance will cover that therapy. (Let’s just say I am glad we aren’t going to have a mortgage payment in the near future! Yipes.)
I am also contemplating an Occupational Therapy evaluation. I might wait until we do a couple months of vision therapy to see what kind of results we get, but I feel that sooner or later OT might be in the picture as well.
I am surprised that I don’t feel upset by the results of L’s testing (though I am decidedly unthrilled about the cost). I am actually quite relieve that we have finally put the pieces of the puzzle together. I am also really glad we figured this out now, rather than when she started having problems with her reading skills in kindergarten. Hopefully, we can whip her brain into shape and nip these problems in the bud.