I need input regarding vision therapy so am going to piggyback here rather than start a new thread.
My DD10 has been diagnosed with literally just about every possible LD, almost all in their most severe forms. Also has pretty severe migraines which she takes daily medication for. She is in out of district placement at a spec Ed school because of the profound learning disabilities but is doing 1-1 HS level reading comprehension curriculum (using audio books) and getting major AT support along with OT, SLP, Wilson reading and math supports for the various LD issues.
Earlier this year we did a psychoeducational eval with someone recommended by the Eides. She found DD's numbers overall significantly lower than in previous testing (probably due in large part to meds for her migraines) but still the difference between her Verbal Comprehension and all other parts of the WISC occurred in 0.0%-0.3% of the population. In other words HUGE processing issues. Among the recommendations (in the 50 page report) were to have DD evaluated for CAPD and vision therapy. Lo and behold she was indeed found to have an auditory processing issue affecting her left ear - I never suspected this. I had looked into vision therapy 4 years ago when DD's issues were first identified and I was shot down by our pediatrician and sent to an opthomologist instead. He said DD had "the best set of eyes I've seen all year" and she didn't need to be seen again for 5 years. After reading success stories here I looked into vision therapy on my own but got poor reports about out local developmental opto. After getting this latest report, though, I did some more research and found someone with good reviews a bit farther from home and took DD this week...
Developmental Optometrist says DD basically has no close up vision. 20/32 in one eye, 20/40 in the other. Double vision she can force together but it doesn't come naturally. Her eyes each see a different image so her brain has been alternately turning off one or the other. She has been compensating, compensating, compensating her whole life. Exceptional distance and peripheral vision so she is constantly taking in extraneous input. This explains why she *has* to hyper-focus on tasks and probably has led to many of her processing issues. Also likely contributing to her headaches.
We will be driving to "vision gym" 45 minutes from school/ 30 minutes from home 1-2 times a week for the next year. I'm hoping the exercises can be done in school as we have found that DD puts in 100% effort in school all day no matter how difficult as long as she doesn't have to do more after school. She compartmentalizes and school is work time as long as outside of school she can let it all go and relax, focusing on things that are easier and enjoyable. District, who has basically been agreeing to any and all requests we have made as a way of compensating for how terribly DD had been treated early on, is saying vision therapy is not scientifically proven and they usually don't support these services.
Does the developmental opto's explanation make sense to those of you who have been through this? Any questions I should be asking? I plan to argue both the compartmentalizing and the fact the this was a recommendation from the psychoeducational eval (which the district paid for...). Any other arguments I can make to have the 15 minutes 3-4x a week included in her IEP?
