Holy crap, I looked through the questions I have left to answer and I may be answering questions until groundhog day.  Please bear with me as I try to knock some of these out!

Kate from the Industrious Eye asks:

I’d like to hear more about your experience with vision therapy for L. Did you feel it helped her, and if so, what differences do you see? I have a problem that I could pass on to my kids that is sometimes treated with vision therapy. But it’s a controversial subject. Because it wasn’t how I was treated, I don’t have much insight.

 

When L was about 3.5, I figured out that she was having some issues with her vision based on some basic developmental tests performed by her preschool.   Before that, I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t figure out what it was.  After a lot of therapy and research, we figured out that L had the following issues: a visual processing disorder which included tracking/pursuit problem and a significant delay in her visual motor skills; a problem with her visual-ocular reflex (vision and balance), midline issues and sensory integration issues.  Let’s just focus on the vision stuff for a the time being.

We can’t be sure why L had these issues, but there is a strong possibility that it was because she missed being held, rocked and moved around when she was very young (around or before 3 months old) and living in the orphanage.  We can all take a minute to think about how sad that is, but the reality is, L is fine and these issues were identified and treatable unlike many other issues common with institutionalization and neglect.

While I am generally very anti-”lucky baby”, I will say in one way L was very fortunate that she ended up with our family because her presentation of issues is extremely atypical and medical professionals kept telling us there was nothing wrong.  Because L could do skills she should not be able to do (ride a bike, use chopsticks) because she lacked foundation vision and vestibular/balance skills, it took a lot of research and persistence for me to figure them out and find the right people to work them out.  My gut told me something was off with L and eventually I found out I was right. Had I listened to the first professionals, L would have suffered needlessly for years and had educational deficits from delayed treatment.*

In case you are curious, some issues that raised red flags (or were indicative of problems once we figured out what we were dealing with): L would only be in an upright or completely flat plane–she hated anything that required reclining, her drawing and coloring was horrendous compared to same age kids, she would draw on the right side of the paper with her right hand and the left side with her left, she was very physical but in a tightly controlled way–she never jumped from a high or spun around but liked having other people spin her, she would not pay attention to books at all–not even for 20 seconds (probably because she couldn’t make sense of the pictures), she could not learn phonics at all despite six months of trying, she could not play memory or figure out matching pictures even if the cards were face up, she was clueless about the shape sorter, yada yada yada.   All stuff that seemed kind of OK, but when you know what you are looking for, these are giant flashing signs of visual processing and vestibular issues.

For the visual processing stuff, L did three blocks of seven sessions of vision therapy under the supervision of a developmental optomotrist when she was just over 4 years old.  If you read the comments here, you will see that vision therapy has a lot of controversy around it, but it was absolutely life changing for L.  It is kind of hard to remember how significant the changes were, but I made a post here after she had done vision therapy for about 6 weeks.   Here is a post when she graduated from Vision Therapy.

L isn’t the same kid she was before vision therapy.  She is academically right on target, though she still struggles a little with paying attention and sitting still (which is likely due to her sensory issues–which are another post entirely).  Within 6 weeks of starting vision therapy, something clicked and she got phonics.  Despite the fact that I had been trying to teach her phonics for 6 months before that, she got all the letters all at the same time — in about three days.  Over time, her visual fine motor skills and visual memory  have improved dramatically.  She loves to listen to stories now and spends hours looking at pictures books.  L started jumping off furniture and spinning herself around which I suspect she had never done because her vision and balance were so wonky.  We also did occupational therapy to work on the vestibular-ocular and midline issues too, but the biggest changes happened in Vision Therapy (though I suspect she could use a bit more OT because she still won’t recline in a bean bag).

Controversy or no, I am a vision therapy convert.  Answering this questions is very fortuitously timed.  Just today, I read Fixing My Gaze which is from the point of view of an adult neurobiologist who had great success with vision therapy (also, it was fascinating!).

We spent about $2,000 on vision therapy, none of which was covered by our insurance, but I feel it was money well-spent.  I also believe we spent much less because we chose to have L treated while she was so young and her brain was so plastic.  I know it is only speculation, but I feel very sure that L would have had a horrible time trying to learn to read and may have been diagnosed as learning disabled had she not had vision therapy.  She may never be a completely typical student, but I know her vision is not causing problems.

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*I know this is a long post, but I am writing more than I would otherwise because I suspect many post-institutionalized kids have similar atypical presentation of these issues and someone might recognize their kid in this.