Hi Melessa - I think you're lucky your ds told you he saw 6 strings! Our dd11 had severe double vision that went undiagnosed for years because she never thought to mention it to anyone - she really truly thought we were all seeing two of everything. She started having a tough time reading from the board in 2nd grade, so we took her to our regular eye dr, who told us her eyesight was fine (and it was, in each eye, looking at one eye at a time!). We didn't realize her vision was severely challenged until she took the WISC as part of a neuropsych for us to figure out why she was having a tough time learning how to read - her block design score was in the 1/2th percentile - it was *that* low. There was one other test that was really low too - I think symbol search, so right away the neuropsych told us she thought our dd couldn't see.. and she was correct! FWIW, I didn't see our dd take the WISC and the neuropsych didn't make any notes on how she handled looking at the blocks etc, but dd used to bend her head around and squint like crazy when she was doing things like puzzles. She was also very fidgety and didn't sit still for long.
DD went through more than a year of vision therapy - and the first three months were simply amazing - within just a few weeks her fidgeting and falling out of her seat went away, and within the first few months she made huge gains in her reading ability - and probably most importantly, she went from having been a child who didn't particularly like to read to being a child who walked around with a book hiding her nose all the time because she suddenly loved to read. I think there's even something more important for her that's a bit subtle - not sure this will make sense, but fwiw - I think dd would have been "ok" even if we'd never caught her visual challenge or sent her to VT. She clearly had come up with ways to compensate and cope quite well. BUT - she didn't *love* to read. Now, several years later - I know something about my dd I didn't know back then. She's a gifted writer - she loves loves loves to write. I am so glad that we gave her that opportunity to blossom as a reader, because I think it is a vital part of her studies as a writer.
So - if VT was recommended, I would definitely give it a try.
Best wishes,
polarbear
