Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Vision Therapy -Not seeing any differences

DS9 started weekly vision therapy 4 weeks ago for his convergence and focusing issue. We have been doing daily home practice diligently as well. So far I have not seen any noticable changes at all. He reads and still read for short period of time and needs streching for being tired. his handwriting is still very sloppy. His attention span is still very short just like before. I am getting a little impatient as we are skeptical of the vision therapy to begin with, although his case was confirmed by a second opinion. Appreciate if you could share yout VT experiences, how long will you see the impacts, in which way do you see the impacts?

It definitely took longer for us... But we didn't do the homework honestly. We started with the Vt twice a week tho . Also my son had over convergence and I found that his using his iPhone was not helping at all ( was making the problem worse).., so I insisted he use a computer or full sized iPad instead ... I wasn't sure that it was helping but I did notice his eyes stopped watering and bothering him when he read. Also, he insists it helped - he said it felt like one day reading stopped being so tiring and hard. He did jump several reading levels after that. He did the therapy for about two years with breaks.... This partially because I forced the school to provide some as well (they paid for 6 months worth). Hth!

Hi
We started VT with my DS7 back in June. I was also skeptical. We did our best with the homework, although DS hated it. We went for appointments for around 4 weeks before the summer started. During the summer we went as often as we could, but with vacations and activities it ended up being quite sporadic. We started up again regularly in September.

I have to say that after the 4 weeks in June, I did not see a big difference. DS7 was able to do better at the eye control exercises, but I didn't notice any changes in reading or writing. However, at about the end of September, DS started picking up books on his own and reading them. I believe that he had had about 10 sessions total at that point. Before VT, he would read a bit then give up and ask me to read to him.

And last week I noticed while helping with his homework, that he was writing more quickly and fluently, and didn't tire as quickly.

Of course, these changes _could_ be developmental (and I'll never know for sure), but my feeling is that the VT is playing a part in the improvements.

DS had a re-check with the Optometrist and she said he's improved a lot. So, we're going for 8 more weeks and checking again.

Following. Recently got a VT eval for my DS9 in same boat, convergence issues and sloppy handwriting (except he has no trouble reading, just gets headaches sometimes), awaiting report and then will see what's recommended.

It's been quite awhile, but I think that we saw the biggest change in our dd after about 2-3 months of VT, and then the changes became less obviously apparent after that. I will add though, that our dd had issues beyond simply convergence - she had severe double vision and extremely limited peripheral vision.

Do you sit in and watch the VT appointments? And does the vision therapist keep a record of improvements in the different exercises, or repeat certain exercises after a few weeks to see if there's been improvement? Our dd's VT program was very structured, with goals to meet on each exercise and once she'd met a goal she moved on, so even when it might not be obvious that she was making leaps and bounds improvements in reading, we could see she was making progress, and we had a good idea what specific areas of vision each of the exercises targeted.

Do you think it's possible there's more going on with your ds' reading than vision? Vision therapy addresses weak muscle tone and how muscles work together, but it doesn't remedy Learning Disabilities/etc. It's possible that a child who's diagnosed with a vision issue might have yet another layer of issues underneath, that you can't see until you have remediated the vision challenge.

Best wishes,

polarbear

ps - also curious - you mentioned having two different sources recommend vt for your child - who were the people who recommended it?

purpleviolin, I took a quick look back at your previous posts about your ds' WISC testing. He had a relatively large dip in processing speed subtests (both coding and symbol search), which *can* be due to vision issues, but can also be due to other things, including fine motor challenges. You mentioned that he was a daydreamer who didn't get started on writing assignments in that post, and also mentioned messy handwriting either here or there (please forgive me if I'm remembering incorrectly). If your ds had been seen by a private neuropsych, they would have included testing beyond the WISC to determine what the cause of the dips in processing speed subtests is (vision vs fine motor). If I understand your previous post correctly, you took your ds to a vision specialist for testing and received a diagnosis. Since it's been 4 weeks and you aren't seeing any improvement, I'd consider trying to ask either through the school or by finding a local private neuropscyh for testing that gives you more of an understanding of what's behind the low scores in processing speed. You may hear that it's common with children with ADHD (and I think it is), but it's also common with other LDs and challenges, and when a child is having to cope in school with an undiagnosed LD they often have behaviors that look a lot like ADHD, but really aren't ADHD. That doesn't mean your ds' diagnosis of ADHD is incorrect, just that there is a small bit of unexplored testing that might yield a great deal of information for you.

Best wishes,

polarbear

I am just not too sure about how much of his "problems" are associated by vision issues and how much are just what he is.
For $120 per 45 miniutes, I can't help second questionning the value of these simple activities.

It seems to me that the developmental optometrist will most likely find some problems if a child is brought to her office and make recommendations of lenthy and expensive therapy sesssions.

Without any real results, I find it hard to be convinced. Hopefully I am being totally biased and judgmental.

Polarbear, he was seen by a private neuropscyh 2 year ago and you can find on my older posts, it took extreamly long as he wasn't paying attention for some sections. For the large discrepancy (2 STD) across different subtests, the only further testing she suggested was vision testing. Are you suggesting we should get him tested one more time to uncover potentially other LD issues?

This summer we started vision therapy for DS8. He went once a week for 12 weeks, and he did daily homework at home. While he didn't like the homework in most cases, he did do it. After 12 weeks we decided to stop for four reasons 1) we weren't seeing any differences in his day to day life; 2) most days he wouldn't do the homework without a lot of fighting; 3) he said he didn't see a difference; 4) it was really expensive. While he did score higher on their eval tests, I wonder how much of that is because they were designed to test the specific things he was practicing with therapy.

We were skeptical to start the therapy, but I had talked to friends where it had done wonders for their child. We felt trying it for 12 weeks was long enough to see a difference if there was going to be any. We were only going to continue with it past 12 weeks if we could see a difference at home.

The psychologist who did DS's testing recommended the VT. She is actually pretty reputable in our area. However, there were inconsistency in the way she described DS's issue and her final report. We got very confused after two evaluation sessions in the ambiguous and noncommital way she explained thigns. We went to a second VT, did a quick screening and she confirmed DS has both convergence and focusing issues. We finally decided to start the therapy mainly because handwriting is such a daily struggle and it still is today.