Originally Posted by polarbear
Originally Posted by DeeDee
I don't know much about this. I can tell you that we have worked on it in many small ways. We send our kids on small "trips" in the house ("please go to the basement and bring back one can of chicken broth") that reinforce the skill of keeping something in your head.

marytheres, I'm glad DeeDee mentioned this (which is a great idea!)... because it reminded me of something from the years when my dd was younger and we didn't realize she had vision issues. We were *extremely* worried about her ability to remember simple directions -we would ask her to go to another room and bring back something - very simple directions that her two-years younger sister could easily do- and she'd completely forget, get distracted so easily. This was all happening before we'd been to see a neuropsych for ds, so I wasn't familiar with terms like working memory back then, but today I'd describe what was going on as appearing to be challenges with short term and working memory. But really - it wasn't! The things that looked like memory issues improved tremendously after improvements from VT started kicking in. Her eye dr says it is a combination of visual distractions plus the combined load of effort required to process visual information is overwhelming the resources available to the child to integrate visual plus auditory systems etc.

polarbear

Yes, I think this is/could be a factor.... Processing issues eating up mental ram so to speak! I am still trying to compare the two test results (last year's WISC before VT and knowledge of vision issue) and January's SB-V after 6 months of VT. But the tests are different so it's not as easy/clear. as I would like. However, DH and I went through it last night and DS has improved. On the Wisc he was like in the 'well-below borderline range' (the eval uses the word "retarded" to describe the range but I hate that word) for processing, working memory and visual spatial (they actually had to throw the VS test out last year b/c he got none right and simply couldn't do the test) now on the corresponding SB-V subtest he is "low average" on WM, Processing and I visual-spatial... We did the comparison in attempt to help me to stop freaking out LOL and it did help. He has actually improved decently since starting VT - it's just slow and he is still low ... So, there's that. I did talk with his vision doc and he said the same as you... he said they could also inocrporate some Working Memory stuff in to the therapy...