I've posted previously about the issues my DS7 has been having in school. He had strabismus surgery over a year ago but we assumed everything was OK since the surgeon said he was "cured." Well, after investigating possible reasons for him struggling to complete work at school, we decided to take him to a developmental/behavioral optometrist for an evaluation to make sure his eyes are working with his brain.
We went yesterday and it was so very helpful. My son still does not have very good binocular vision and is working very hard to maintain what he has. He also has a fixation dysfunction which means he doesn't always even know which way his eyes are looking. No wonder he gets tired and disengages from his work! I saw him rubbing his eyes, sometimes covering one eye, turning his head while he was reading - things I've never noticed at home I guess because he doesn't do as intense work at home.
The DO also said he suspects DS may have sensory processing issues and he recommends an evaluation from an OT first before going through vision therapy. He said DS needs to go back and fill in some developmental building blocks first. My son doesn't have a very good awareness of where his body is in space. For example, instead of just knowing which eye is his right eye, he goes through a system of identifying his right hand and then makes the connection that the right eye is on the same side so it must be the right eye.
I feel relieved to uncover an answer but I'm kicking myself for not taking him sooner. The opthamologist is not really keen on vision therapy and told me his eyes were perfect (sure they are nice and straight now but they are not working together without a lot of effort on my son's part).
So I guess it's off to an OT for an eval. My son does have some sensitivity to tags (only really scratchy ones), jeans (they are too "hard"), long sleeves (he always pushes them up), and he absolutely hates water in his eye and is terrified to put his head under water (therefore he can't swim). Doesn't like getting his hand covered in dirt or clay either. He also just figured out how to swing himself on the swing set and used to cry at the top of a slide at the park. He can go down them now.
I'm sure all of these things are related to him having undetected strabismus for almost 6 years. He had double vision that whole time but compensated by turning his head.
Now I'm in a whole new world of things to research. I really thought most of the issues were just his giftedness. Even the DO said DS blew away other 7 year olds (he was reading 6th grade vocab in one of the eye tests). His intelligence has helped him mask some of the vision issues (he still has great comprehension even though he was skipping or substituting words). This also explains why his processing speed was really slow on the WISC.
Anyway, just an update. Will post more after we seen an OT.
