Hi,
I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed right now, so I hope this post makes sense!
My PG son, 8, was referred to a place in Alabama called the Snider Therapy Center by his teacher (we live in NW Florida). This is a vision therapy center that also employs the use of a vestibular table to 're-boot' the vestibular system through movement, lights and sounds all at the same time.
He was referred because his teacher believes that he has a proprioceptive disorder which makes it hard for him to keep track of where he is on the page, because she believes he has to 'keep checking' to see where his body is in space and then loses his place. The evidence she's given me is that while he is intellectually capable of doing his math work, it takes him much longer than it should to do things that he has to keep in a column, such as long division or adding/subtracting several 4 or more digit numbers. She also claims that when she lets him sit on the floor away from the other kids and hug his knees, he's able to get all of his work done in record speed. She was also his swimming teacher, and witnessed his fear of putting his head under water, which she says is also a sign. The most telling thing, to me, that something is off is that his lowest score on the WISC was processing speed - it was still in the average range, but 65 points lower than his highest score.
At the recommendation of the psychologist who administered his IQ test, he went to occupational therapy, but we didn't see a whole lot of results from that, and he hasn't been back in over a year. The occupational therapist said many times that she didn't see that he had much to work on, but I believe that's because most of their clientele that I saw were kids with more severe disabilities, so in comparison to them, he was doing well.
Other than these things, and the fact that his gross motor skills aren't great (he's clumsy, has trouble catching a ball - although he can - and trouble riding a bike, etc.), he doesn't have any other issues that I can see. Well, he does have some signs of Dabrowski's OE's and maybe a touch of OCD, but nothing that seems debilitating (and I have some of that,too). He seems to like school, works several grades ahead in all subjects, and has loved to read and write since he was 3. While he does try to avoid 'column-work' math, he loves algebra and geometry. He is highly gifted in music, has a great sense of humor, and has friends.
His teacher was quite insistent that she believed he needed to go to Snider, though, and also that he should go soon, since she said once he hit puberty his brain would basically get rid of what it wasn't using and strengthen the connections it was using. She said that while it wasn't holding him back academically yet, his 'neurology would beat him up' as his work got harder and harder, and it would eventually cause problems for him. I tried to research the business and the therapies they employ, and they all seem sort of 'new-age-y' to me. I don't necessarily have a problem with that, but I am very much a skeptic about things that I can't find a lot of scientific backing on.
Worried that he needed this and we weren't providing it, though, we decided to take him to Snider to be evaluated. What they came back with was that he needed not only the vestibular table treatment, but also the vision therapy, because his eyes were having trouble working together.
The vestibular table treatment is where he'll lie on a table that moves either side to side or head to toe, and he'll look at lights that are certain frequencies meant to affect the hypothalamus, while also listening to music and sounds at different frequencies. He'll do this for 30 minutes a day, twice a day, for 12 days in a row, then we'll bring home a 'light box' and have him do stuff at home for 18 days. This is supposed to be a permanent and dramatic 'fix'.
The vision therapy involves a lot of homework and visits to the center for 4 sessions a month, for a year.
The tests they said he had problems with, besides the ones that checked his eye teaming abilities, were: one that checked where his brain kicked in in his peripheral vision (they said he had some tunnel vision, which is linked to the autonomous nervous system and anxiety), one that checked his hearing (his ability to hear low frequencies was different in each ear, which they said is a sensory issue, and his ability to hear in general was 'off the chart', which they said sounded good but meant too much information was going in), how well he could identify a shape he'd just seen when it was 'hidden' in a bunch of others (not well), and if he could repeat two words when one was heard by one ear and the other heard by his other ear - through earphones (no - kept messing the words up, which they said meant something was wrong with his 'processor'). These things, they said, are all linked to anxiety, depression, exhaustion, difficulty with harder school work, and meltdowns, among other things.
FInally down to my questions! Has anybody on here ever heard of this place or any other place that employs these techniques? Does anybody know if this is legitimate? I want to get him help if he needs it, but I don't want to necessarily 'change' him if these things he has (besides the eye teaming thing, of course) are just normal for a PG kid. His hearing, in particular, is important, with his love of music and his prodigiousness in that. I don't know that I want it 'tuned down' if it's not really a problem. And last, but not least, if these people are charlatans and this treatment is bogus, I'd like to know that, too. We don't have a lot of money, and this would not only set us way back financially, but it is also about a 6 hour drive to get there. I'd gladly do it if I thought it was the best thing, but have a lot of doubts.
If anybody was able to read through that entire humongous post, I really appreciate it and would love some help/advice!
Thank you!
