Vision Therapy and Glasses

A few weeks ago I noticed that as I read with Dalin he would often skip words, flip words, get lost, and sometimes even skip whole sections.  I worked with him and would have him place his finger on the page and follow along so he wouldn't get lost and would have him go back and re-read where he messed up but felt a little concerned.  So I talked to his teacher who said she noticed the same thing at school.  She said they had an aide who worked with kids that had these kinds of these happening, but suggested I get his eyes checked first.  I was also told at Braden's Kindergarten screening that we may want to have his eyes checked too.  No surprise since both Dan and I are blind as bats.  Poor genes there, unfortunately.  So off we went to visit the eye doctor.  After checking Dalin's eyes and doing several little tests on him the doctor said Dalin had Binocular Vision Impairment, meaning his eyes have a hard time coming to focus on the same point within a foot or closer to his face.  He suggested a doctor in Roosevelt who did vision therapy.  So we made an appointment in Roosevelt and headed down there the next day.  After several more extensive tests it was concluded that the previous diagnosis was wrong and that Dalin actually has Gross Eye Motor Impairment.  His eyes don't work together.  They each do their own thing.  So while one eye is looking at a point the other eye is off doing something else.  The doctor showed me and it kind of freaked me out.  How have I not noticed this before!  No wonder he loses his place when he reads and skips words.  When your eyes aren't looking at the same thing it would really hard to do much of anything.  The doctor was impressed that Dalin could read on grade level and the good news is it can be fully corrected with vision therapy.  So now Dalin has to go to vision therapy once a week until the problem is corrected.  He has vision therapy homework to do at home and the doctor said we can expect to see a drastic improvement in several areas.  His reading speed should improve, his reading comprehension should drastically increase, his eye hand coordination will improve, and his ability to focus on something for longer periods of should improve (In other words, he probably doesn't have ADD, which we have looked into).  The doctor also said that Dalin's headaches could be attributed to this problem and once corrected they should go away.  All in all it has been a very positive experience and I hope that we can help Dalin improve his life.  His teacher, Mrs. Luck, has been fantastic to work with and she said that she has another student doing vision therapy and has seen a huge improvement in him.  I'm excited to see Dalin's progress.  He was VERY bummed, however that he doesn't get to wear glasses.  We're talking in tears because of it.

Braden on the other hand was found to have an astigmatism.  So he gets to wear glasses since this is the only way to improve or correct this condition.  He did not want to wear glasses and was pretty bummed about it.  But once he got to choose them and put them on he felt a little better about it.  He looks all grown up with them on and so far has been very responsible with them.  It's taken a week or so for him to get used to them and not take them off every two minutes.  He chose Nike glasses that are green and here he is sportin' his new look.