We are starting Vision Therapy now

Micelle78

DS (4yo, speech delay and farsided 6+ vision) went for his vision check up yesterday.  He started wearing glasses last summer to try to help his extreme farsided-ness.  The problem is that it is neurologically caused (so a processing problem not an actual eye problem).  My husband who has been captain denial about everything in our journey had never gone to an eye appointment.  He swore up and down that DS's vision was fine.  How else could you explain the hyperlexia and ability to read words right in front of him and at a distance.  He never wanted to have me explain that it was much more complicated than that and all the body systems are so inter-related.  DS obviously has sensory issues (body communicating with the brain problem) and has a receptive language delay (hearing is normal and again... brain processing problem).

DH finally (although I knew this was the reason all along) admitted how hard it was to hear even one more time, your kid has problems.  As you remember, he is the one that wants to put off an actual eval for autism until the year before kinder. DS got an "at risk" from the school district eval 2 years ago. DH seems to think DS will be so well adjusted by then most people will not be able to tell.  He knows that I don't think that will be the case.  I agreed to wait on testing for the dx. DH had a very hard childhood being misdiagnosed with many things before they realized it was bipolar.  He has a unique perspective that I am sensitive to because he had a very hard time in school and was not treated well and had lots of behavior issues until they realized that he had bipolar. 

So, this leads to yesterday when I told him I purposely made the appointment for a Thursday because I wanted him to go.  He said no, I will not go, I just can not emotionally handle it right now.  So I let him sleep on it and in the morning he reluctantly came.  The appointment went really well but I could tell he was on edge the whole time.  They told us that they really were not sure if vision therapy would benefit him right now, but thought it was worth a try.  We will be doing twice a week for 6 weeks.  She said the benefit or lack there of would be apparent by that point.  I hope we do see a difference.  The only stimming he seems to do is vision related here and there.  He will hold his hand up in the corner of his vision and stare straight ahead.  He will drop a bunch of flashcards in front of his eyes and stare straight ahead.  This doesn't happen everyday but it looks odd when it does.  I told her that he had a language explosion right after the glasses and suddenly did tons of motor stuff he avoided before.  He used to scream if he was very high off the ground and the week he got his glasses he climbed up the 2 story tubes of the McDs playland.  He never wanted to do anything like that before.  Suddenly he wanted to sit on trikes and everything.  He has mild hypotonia though and it took a full year for him to have the strength to pedal a trike.  Now after turning 4 in June he pedaled more than the 10 feet of earlier in the spring.  He actually has done laps at the park we have and its probably a 1/2 mile around once.  He has done two laps around the last few times we have gone.

So, anyway, I am excited and overwhelmed by everything.  Excited that DH is coming around to accepting things, excited to add a therapy that might really help.  Overwhelmed that I have to rely on the whole family to make this work.  My mom takes DS to his preschool twice a week and OT once a week and DH takes him to speech.  While these things are happening, MIL and FIL watch the 16 month old since FIL is retired and MIL works from home.  Now with VT added, we will be having my mom take him to VT on Tuesday and Thursday DH will do speech and VT.  I teach public school and these places do not have times that are ones I can attend.  I did 100% of therapy over the summer though. 

I need to make a post about the Autism Conference I attended this week.  The keynote speaker was Temple Grandin but there was also another man that talked.  I need to reread the handouts I received there, but he spoke about his experience with Aspergers and vision problems.  He actually wears a baseball hat indoors because he says that fluorescent lights have a strobe-light affect on his eyes.  The hat helps him cope.  I found him very interesting.  He also spoke about how his parents were urged to institutionalize him and that he was dx with autism at 18 months.  He was also non-verbal until 4.  My DS happens to have a speech delay as well as some splinter skills.  I wish I had a chance to just hear more of him.  Anyway, I will save my other thoughts for another post

macchiatto

I really hope it helps! My son was referred for vision therapy. His devel pedi and EI were both fairly skeptical of it and insurance didn't cover it so we didn't follow through, but sometimes I think it would have been worth trying. For him it was visual tracking problems. Anyhow, I hope you have success with it and that having your husband involved with taking him to therapies will help him better understand what challenges your son is dealing with.

Micelle78

Thanks everyone.  I should make sure I clarify that DH is a very involved dad, just too optimistic sometimes and in denial about things.  He has taken DS to every speech appointment for the past two years with the exception of the summer (since I am a teacher).  We have attended a handful together.  There is just no arguing that there is a speech delay and I think that is why he is ok with taking him to speech.  The eyes and motor stuff DH just can not wrap his head around.  He is too quick to dismiss. He is a really great father to both the kids though- he rough houses, plays games, reads books, hangs out.  We are a very close family and both invested in making their childhood great and now have the added stress of making sure we help DS reach his potential.  We just really need to get on the same page and agree on what is important.  I can see it slowly getting there.

Auntie, DS has never pumped his legs on a swing, but I think he may be able to now.  The OT does a lot of crossing the mid-line activities and lots of different swings while DS is on his tummy or sitting crisscross to help with procepitive (I never remember how to spell that stupid word!)  DS can jump the age appropriate distance now (I want to say its 18 inches) and can jump outward (this is something that the glasses helped, sensory seeking behavior helps and of course OT).  A year ago he did not have the strength to push pedals even though his favorite thing to do was/is to run very fast and crash into the couch as well as jump all over the couch and do a headstand.  He still probably does not have the coordination to stand on one foot, but I am sure its not that far off from NT kids at this point.  He also about 6 months ago was the first time he was able to turn the lids of small jars and pull the caps off of markers. 

On the surface, no one would have realized he had gross/fine motor delays.  Like I have said a million times before, he is very social and so active that it can be easily overlooked but he has made so much progress.  Now if I can just get him to care about potty training! I just keep wondering if its a sensory issue or if he just is not mature enough to understand that it is yucky.  He will say"Oh yucky poop!" and if I ask where you are supposed to go potty, he will say the potty.  His receptive language is finally getting to the point he can answer more questions.  Its just still hard because it is still not good.  He had the PSL-4 conducted in March and he scored 4th% for receptive language.  I know no test is perfect, but man, it was not good to hear.  Crazy enough, his expressive is in the 12th%.  This is what confuses the stranger that tries to talk to him.  He constructs a sentence, they proceed with a question, he gets confused and tries to offer an answer but its either not answering it correctly or changing the subject