I just took DS to a neuro-opthamologist to check his eyes. His OT who has had a lot of training in vision issues recommended this (rather than a regular opthamologist). DS had a sixth nerve palsy after an accident and skull fractures/concussion and one of his eyes wasn't tracking at all. As the nerve in his brain healed over the course of several months, the eye gradually started tracking. Even though DS's eyes looked normal after about 5 months, he still was not doing well on depth perception tests. If the eyes are not able to focus together, there is stereo-blindness. DS's OT noted major issues with his tracking, mentioned convergence insuffiency, etc. so the neuro-opthamologist checked all of that. She asked DS to track a slowly moving object in front of his face and DS's eyes immediately crossed and went in different directions. The neuro opthamologist said his tracking issues are very severe and must be from the TBI. She told me we can try vision therapy, but sounded doubtful that even that would help. She said he would not be able to drive, find things in the house, etc. I asked her about reading, since DS reads very well for a 6 year old so she gave him something to read and watched his eyes. She then announced "Clearly he doesn't have a problem with his eyes." I said "huh?" completely baffled. She said that DS's eyes track completely normal when reading and therefore he cannot possibly have these eye tracking issues that look so obvious when you ask him to track a moving object. He can't track "on command" (due to his dyspraxia/DCD or something else, I don't know). If a kid is having tracking issues i think most of them will have problems tracking when reading, lose their place, have fluency issues, etc. She also gave him a depth perception test and this time he did great on it, vs. in early Aug. he wasn't seeing half the test at the other eye doc. So it could be his eyes weren't completely focusing together until this last month or two.
In terms of the dyspraxia, it was a pediatric neurologist who first mentioned it to me when DS was 4. She didn't give him a written diagnosis but when I took DS in for a neuro-psych eval at age 6, we got the diagnosis. In the U.S. it is usually called Developmental Coordination Disorder. DS was a late talker and has some articulation and fluency issues, as well as problems with voice prosody. He also has both gross and fine motor issues. (coordination problems, hypotonia, hypermobile joints, flat feet, etc). One thing that baffles me about DS is that he has amazing visual spatial ability and visual memory, but with many people with dyspraxia, those things are big issues.
