I find I've been using this icon quite a bit lately...
...but this time...wow. Just wow.
For anyone who is stumbling onto this journal for the first time, I tend to write quite a bit about my daughter. Most of the time it's okay, but lately, I've had a scattering of posts about missed homework, late assignments, a bad attitude about school in general, etc., etc., etc.
Kindergarten through second grade were hard. In third grade, she was diagnosed with ADHD and mild disgraphia. The symptoms were treated, a learning plan was put into place, and things took a turn for the better. Fourth and fifth grade saw a major improvement in grades and attitude.
Then we hit middle school. It's been a disaster from the word go. I've talked to her pediatrician, her teachers and the counselors at school trying to determine what the problem was and how to motivate her. I even talked to my daughter to get her insights, shaky ground though that was, and came away empty handed. The only thing I knew was the obvious. My daughter, who everyone agreed was bright and capable was literally self destructing when it came to academic matters. No strategy, organizational method, or means of reward or punishment had been effective in changing her behavior. Even worse, there seemed to be no way to tell how much of her problems were just "a kid at 13".
So late last week, mollymorrison, who has personal experience in the area, asked me if I'd ever heard of convergence insufficiency. Since she's been staying with nightwolfwriter and me, she's had ample time to observe my daughter. She was doing some research on the subject, and noticed my daughter was showing a lot of the CI symptoms. Since I didn't have any better ideas, and CI can masquerade as or co-exist with ADHD, I made an appointment and took her in for an evaluation.
The results of the test were staggering. When I made the appointment, the receptionist told me that testing could be a pricey venture. To save themselves time and me money, if the doctor didn't see anything unusual after the first round of tests, they would stop the testing, charge me for what they'd done, and send me home.
We were there for nearly two and a half hours. And we start Vision Therapy next week. Yeah. It was pretty bad. My daughter doesn't have an obvious condition like crossed or "lazy" eye, but after the first few tests it was obvious that her right eye was doing all the work. Her eyes don't track as a team. In fact, in an attempt to avoid double vision, her brain ignores the left eye and favors the right. Another complication that blew me away is the child can not visualize in her head. I figured that would be a cakewalk for her since she likes to draw so much, but no. Taking a simple line drawing and flipping or rotating it in her head and drawing the resulting shape completely confounded her. She did a little better when the doctor arranged three blocks, had her look at them, covered them, then had her re-create the formation with an identical set of blocks, but she still had trouble. This being unable to visualize is a huge stumbling block learningwise. For starters, it interferes with the learning of sight words, it makes doing math in your head very difficult, and it also interferes with learning abstract concepts.
So, yeah. We had the testing done yesterday. I've spent the time since then doing a little reading and trying to get my head wrapped around the whole idea. On one hand, the Vision Therapy has a decent track record, and I'm hopeful it will help with the problems we've seen. On the other hand, I really wish I'd have found out about this earlier. Heck, my mother in law has issues with lazy eye. It isn't like this was completely beyond the realm of possibilities, but since these types of issues don't tend to run in my family, I didn't consider them. Before a few days ago I didn't even know what convergence insufficiency and vision therapy were! It makes me furious to think about all the wasted time. I know I'm getting her help now, but these symptoms aren't anything new. I just didn't know what I was looking at--and evidently neither did any of the professionals. ::heavy sigh::
Kids. Every day a new adventure. ;-)
For anyone who is stumbling onto this journal for the first time, I tend to write quite a bit about my daughter. Most of the time it's okay, but lately, I've had a scattering of posts about missed homework, late assignments, a bad attitude about school in general, etc., etc., etc.
Kindergarten through second grade were hard. In third grade, she was diagnosed with ADHD and mild disgraphia. The symptoms were treated, a learning plan was put into place, and things took a turn for the better. Fourth and fifth grade saw a major improvement in grades and attitude.
Then we hit middle school. It's been a disaster from the word go. I've talked to her pediatrician, her teachers and the counselors at school trying to determine what the problem was and how to motivate her. I even talked to my daughter to get her insights, shaky ground though that was, and came away empty handed. The only thing I knew was the obvious. My daughter, who everyone agreed was bright and capable was literally self destructing when it came to academic matters. No strategy, organizational method, or means of reward or punishment had been effective in changing her behavior. Even worse, there seemed to be no way to tell how much of her problems were just "a kid at 13".
So late last week, mollymorrison, who has personal experience in the area, asked me if I'd ever heard of convergence insufficiency. Since she's been staying with nightwolfwriter and me, she's had ample time to observe my daughter. She was doing some research on the subject, and noticed my daughter was showing a lot of the CI symptoms. Since I didn't have any better ideas, and CI can masquerade as or co-exist with ADHD, I made an appointment and took her in for an evaluation.
The results of the test were staggering. When I made the appointment, the receptionist told me that testing could be a pricey venture. To save themselves time and me money, if the doctor didn't see anything unusual after the first round of tests, they would stop the testing, charge me for what they'd done, and send me home.
We were there for nearly two and a half hours. And we start Vision Therapy next week. Yeah. It was pretty bad. My daughter doesn't have an obvious condition like crossed or "lazy" eye, but after the first few tests it was obvious that her right eye was doing all the work. Her eyes don't track as a team. In fact, in an attempt to avoid double vision, her brain ignores the left eye and favors the right. Another complication that blew me away is the child can not visualize in her head. I figured that would be a cakewalk for her since she likes to draw so much, but no. Taking a simple line drawing and flipping or rotating it in her head and drawing the resulting shape completely confounded her. She did a little better when the doctor arranged three blocks, had her look at them, covered them, then had her re-create the formation with an identical set of blocks, but she still had trouble. This being unable to visualize is a huge stumbling block learningwise. For starters, it interferes with the learning of sight words, it makes doing math in your head very difficult, and it also interferes with learning abstract concepts.
So, yeah. We had the testing done yesterday. I've spent the time since then doing a little reading and trying to get my head wrapped around the whole idea. On one hand, the Vision Therapy has a decent track record, and I'm hopeful it will help with the problems we've seen. On the other hand, I really wish I'd have found out about this earlier. Heck, my mother in law has issues with lazy eye. It isn't like this was completely beyond the realm of possibilities, but since these types of issues don't tend to run in my family, I didn't consider them. Before a few days ago I didn't even know what convergence insufficiency and vision therapy were! It makes me furious to think about all the wasted time. I know I'm getting her help now, but these symptoms aren't anything new. I just didn't know what I was looking at--and evidently neither did any of the professionals. ::heavy sigh::
Kids. Every day a new adventure. ;-)