Anyone have any experience with reading related vision problems? Amanda is in second grade. She is still struggling to read. She can never remember her sight words and easily confuses were, where, there, then as so forth. She still mixes up b & d. She also has a hard time sounding out words, even though we've done sounds, phonics, ETC, whole word reading. She has strabismus, although she had surgery for that when she was 4 and is within the realm of what is considered normal. Should I be concerned, or just work harder with her on reading?
My daughter was slow to read and it ended up having a lot to do with a vision problem. I'm not familiar with strabismus. I'm assuming she has regular eye exams. Does she already wear glasses?
My daughter was constantly testing out with perfect vision; but still having problems with any reading/writing work. Constantly reversing letters and numbers - at the age of 10! After seeing a specialist, it was recommended that she have vision therapy due to her eyes not lining up together. Something about her eye muscles not working at the same time. Unfortunately vision therapy is extremely expensive and not covered by insurance. The "band-aid" approach was we got her glasses with crystals in them. It lines up words and numbers when she looks at them. She only wears them for written work, as if she wears them all day long her muscles will actually get worse. The difference in her schoolwork was amazing once she started to wear her glasses. Reversals are almost completely gone and silly mistakes in math have disappeared. I only wish we had done this sooner!
My brother had something like this. The doctor suggested we have him use a lite brite. We would put a patch over one eye at a time and he would spend 10 minutes working with the pegs. Switch the patch and 10 minutes again. Not sure how it worked, but it did. My 24 yo DS has Scotopic Sensitivity Syndrome. Basically, when he tries to read black print on white paper the letters start by vibrating, then jiggle, then move, then run like a river on the page. The fix for this is using glasses with colored a colored lens. He had to be tested for the color and shade that adjusted things for him. Wound up being a blue/purple/grey blend. The color is different for each individual. They began with plastic color overlays on the sheets of paper. When the put the blue one there he started reading a little better. By the time they had the light purple/blue sheet on the paper his reading had jumped by 4 grade levels. His teacher was there and couldn't believe it. I was sitting there with my jaw dropped. He went from hunched over and struggling, to sitting up straight, reading fluently and smiling a mile wide.
My dr suggested to me that dd had ok vision, but that her brain didn't process what she was seeing correctly. We seen a specialist that performed a series of tests to rule that out.
We had a foster son who could only read things on blue paper. He was very bright and made good grades. He just couldn't read black on white.
My dd11 has a visual peception deficit (no visual memory/spacial form constancy, eyes don't focus together or move left-to-right, spacial perception is off) it makes reading/witing VERY difficult. Reading has gotten much better, but writing is still very hard. She went through 2 years of Vision Therapy and though there was improvement, it was not a cure.
You may want to check and see how your insurance pays for eye exams. I just found out that ours pays 100% if it is filed as a routine exam. Be sure to ask what 'routine' includes, and to tell your receptionist how your plan works when you make the apt. It didn't cost me anything to have my dd1 checked out.
Thanks everyone! Amanda has an appointment with her pediatric opthamologist in January. If I don't see some improvement, I'll be asking her about it.
We had this with my son - but we were lucky - we noticed it in K. My dh said take him to the eye dr, so we did, and he has a muscular development issue with his right eye - essentially he couldn't "see" and of the text with his right eye, and his left had to jump around to do all the work. He's been in specially lensed glasses for 6 years now, and has 20/30 vision in the "bad eye." The problem with this condition is that usually it is not diagnosed until 2-3rd grade, and by them, most of the muscle damage is done. THis happened to my niece, who has the same condition my ds does. She is now legally blind in her left eye. Get her into an eye dr ASAP - maybe there is more they can do. Good luck.
