Cricket, my dd10 had VT when she was 8 and it made a *world* of difference in her life. She struggled with reading but did not have dyslexia - see my comments below:
She has issues with strongly disliking reading for pleasure despite reading comprehension being above grade level, losing her place on the page, fatigue while reading, headaches, and substitution of words.
This was true for both my dd who went through VT (before VT) and for my younger dd, who was found to have a weakness in associative memory. FWIW - it was recommended to us by her evaluator that if her reading didn't improve after other accommodations we should have her go through a VT eval also, which we will be doing later this fall.
What she does not have is the traditional phonics issues or writing issues. Her phonemic awareness is very good and always has been. Her writing is not messy and does not run above or below the lines.
There are other types of reading challenges that aren't necessarily dyslexia, including vision challenges. My dd10's phonemic awareness was actually among her highest scores on neuropsych testing. In her case, however, there were very very obvious dips in block design and symbol search on the WISC and another non-WISC test that relied on vision.
So, I am reading some stuff claiming that vision therapy would help with these issues.
It will really help - if the reason reading is fatiguing, slow, etc is due to a muscle weakness.
I am also reading stuff like
this statement from Children's Eye Foundation that essentially say that we'd be wasting our money.
This article isn't saying *you'd* be wasting your money, it says that Vision Therapy is successful for certain types of conditions and not for others. There are, from what I understand, behavioral optometrists that will try to sell it as a cure for anything, and it's not. It is, however, a very effective treatment for some types of vision disorders, some of which have symptoms similar to what you've posted re your dd.
When we were first referred for vision therapy, I was very skeptical - but I'd also known another mom whose dd had been through VT so I asked her about her experience, and it was very *very* positive. It still sounded like hocus pocus to me, so I asked our regular eye dr (our dd had just been through an exam with the regular eye dr and was found to have 20/20 eyesight). I was *floored* when our regular eye dr told us vision therapy (and the eye dr who'd been recommended by the neuropsych) is a very real and often beneficial treatment and that it would catch things that she never looked at in her exams. A regular eye dr looks at the vision in each eye, but a behavioral optometrist looks at how the eyes work *together*. According to our eye dr, if the eyes aren't working together and it's due to muscle weakness, VT can help in many cases. If it's due to a neurological challenge (as in the case of an LD), VT isn't going to help.
Vision therapy is not covered by insurance and is very expensive and we can't afford to waste money if it won't help.
I'm really sorry your insurance won't cover it. Our insurance did cover it... and yes, the expense did add up. A few things you might consider: the initial evaluation was not hugely expensive and we learned so much from just knowing what our dd's vision issues were - if you can swing an evaluation it might give you good info. Another thought - our dd's VT office treated clients who lived far away and couldn't come in for weekly (or even monthly) therapy, so they would come in and the parents would learn how to do the exercises and then do everything at home - only visiting the office a few times per year. This kept costs way down. Kids who do VT usually have daily exercises to do at home anyway - it's not the kind of therapy you go in once a week for and forget about until the next visit.
The worry I have is that, while we have a nationally well known behavioral optometrist in town as well as a number of other behavioral optometrists, I don't know anyone who has gone for an evaluation with any of these individuals and been told that there is not a problem that can be treated with vision therapy. I fear that we're going to be told that she needs vision therapy regardless of whether it will fix the issues she is having or not. Any thoughts?
How many people do you know who've been in for evals? Do you have a gut feeling that there wasn't really an issue or do you think they were scammed? I tend to wonder about the "nationally known" part - a good behavioral optometrist wouldn't necessarily have to be nationally known - so why are they nationally known? Is it due to their work or due to self-promotion?[/quote]
I would ask my regular eye dr who he/she would recommend for a vision processing evaluation. I would also check to see if they are a member of the organization our dr belongs to (which I can't remember the name of right now lol! - I'll look it up).
FWIW, we were curious if our ds also had minor vision challenges after the success our dd had with VT, because when he learned to read he also read very slowly, seemed to not recognize easy words, and held his head and eyes at really weird angles as he read, plus complained about his eyes being tired and not being able to read the board. He went through an initial evaluation by the same VT drs office and.... was found to have no visual challenges at all. Our dd otoh - we watched while she was going through her eval and that's when all my skepticism faded. About halfway through the exam she was asked a question and her answer totally floored me... and it was as obvious from that as daylight is obvious that she had double vision... yet we'd *never* had a clue at home, other than her fatigue and dislike of reading. Once we knew about it, we could see other signs that weren't as obvious.
I hope some of that helps -
polarbear
