vision therapy

There are times as a mom when you see something going on with your kids, sense there is something amiss, but just can't quite put your finger on it.  I had one of those moments this summer as I observed Rachel during a violin lesson.  She was playing out of a book that had several lines of music, and kept losing her place.  Her teacher was very patient, but I could tell even he was perplexed at how often she skipped down a line or two while playing.

I thought about things like trouble with cutting, illegible handwriting, skipping words when reading, and lack of comprehension of things she had read.  After doing some reading and hearing others' stories about vision therapy, I began to suspect these things may have a visual component.  We made an appointment with a developmental optometrist, and waited for 2 months to get in.

Yesterday was that appointment.  It was intriguing to watch the testing.  Some of it was what you would see at any eye appointment, along with other vision tests.  The most telling was when the Dr. did some muscle testing.  She had Rachel follow her finger with her eyes, and I could see them jump rather than stay fluid in their tracking.  Sure enough, her diagnosis involved a tracking problem that can be addressed with a few sessions of vision therapy followed by a home program.

When Rachel reads, she sees one word and then skips to the beginning of another further on or perhaps even a line or two down!  This means that she skips shorter words, and spends so much effort and energy on making sense what she sees, there is little left for remembering and understanding.  The handwriting, cutting, skipping words are all due to this eye muscle difficulty.  I find it amazing that even with this vision problem, she has stayed mostly on grade level with her reading and spelling and still enjoys learning.  Comprehension is my biggest concern for her.  I'm not expecting vision therapy to be the whole solution, but at least it is a place to start.

I wish we had known about this when Rachel was younger!  I post it here hoping to raise awareness that when there is a reading problem, there truly may be more going on than meets the eye.