Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional vision problems - a total surprise

He was hit on the right side of his head and fractured his skull and had a sixth nerve palsy on the right side, affecting the right eye. We kept the left eye patched as much as we could because he was developing amblyopia and losing vision in the right eye. It was stuck in a crossed position for months (not sure how he was able to see anything that way with the normal eye patched, but he functioned/compensated very well), and then gradually it began moving toward the outside--a tiny bit each day until it was able to track all the way to the outside. The eye doctor was surprised because normally there is not complete recovery after trauma.


If i put a pencil or something in front of his face and move it slowly back and forth, his eyes only track together for about 5 seconds and he moves his head back and forth. But they track just fine when he is reading and he is fluent. We had a neuro-opthamologist look at his tracking and she thought he is fine unless he is forced to track on command. So I'm not really sure how much it affects him.

Right eye for myself also with extreme spatial visualization skills. I think it is some compensation and some hijacking of brain functionality. Binocular vision takes a huge amount of brain resources dedicated to developing instinctual tracking, response to trajectory, estimating speed, etc. Without that demand the brain seems to let over that facility to conscious manipulation.

One of the pulls to my majoring in cognitive psychology was curiosity about the odd juxtaposition between an extreme internal ability matched to an external disability. Anecdotes here have presented many other variations than stereo-blindness that emphasize the same sort of mechanic in play.

All of my kids, to varying degrees, seem to have poor tracking and eye teaming, one is significantly dyslexic, and all have a significant visual spatial strength.

Interesting. Ds9 had the severe flattening to the right rear of his head with the left eye injury and the torticollis (neck injury). That affected his sense of balance, vestibular, spatial awareness, sensory processing, and so on from day 1. When ds was a baby, I had ots telling me that it was like ds had CP or hemiplagia or a stroke in utero because he had such very limited use of the left side of his body and bilateral coordination (with his brain and body).

My ds has seen six eye doctors (three pediatric ophthalmologists and three pediatric behavioral optometrists) so far between NYC and MA. They all agree on ds's visual deficits from birth, but they've differed on the prognosis, treatment, and what's happened since then or for the future. I had actually asked one of the pediatric behavioral optometrists when ds was between 4-6 yrs old doing VT re cranial nerve palsy and equivalent since there's been a number of kids born with tort that end up having it.

I've gone nutty at times between what the ophthalmologists and optometrists have said and differ and what that darn 1% visual subtest score means and entails.

The last eye doctor said that neuro optometry or connections between vision and neurology are only just emerging now and that it's a new field. I can say that the vestibular is very closely aligned with visual system as does the ability to cross midline with the brain and body. And if a child (as others have mentioned) are unable to make cross midline and/or have a poor vestibular, then the body/brain will take the path of least resistance and neural pathways will go elsewhere to avoid doing the 'hard' work.

Maybe it's me, but it seems like there are differences between left/right eye injuries. Maybe this depends on which eye is dominant or becomes more dominant due to an injury.

With ds being left eye injury/ right brain injury and neck injury, he couldn't sit still for two minutes when he was younger and there was no way he could play a video game like PacMan or Asteriods, for instance (yes, I'm dating myself here) or something like Minecraft. Ds finds Minecraft and other video games too stimulating. I also think, though, he's spatially unable to track things visually with movement and use his hands at the same time. He gets frustrated and annoyed some days that I can type (and type fast) and he can't. But it takes a lot of coordination to type. Yet I know other kids, though, with right eye injuries who can sit for hours playing video games and type pretty well.

At times, I try to find people who study kids like ds, but these people seem few and far between. There are people studying adults and former football players with brain injuries, but there seems to be very few who study children.