Vision Therapy Anyone??
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Vision Therapy Anyone??
| Thu, 06-08-2006 - 8:36pm |
So I was talkign to the OT for Bobby's playgroup today and hse said she feels Bobby needs vision therapy.
| Thu, 06-08-2006 - 8:36pm |
Is that called tracking? I know Jakes therapist said he has a problem with visual discrimination but don't completely understand what she means. I think it means he has trouble with becoming overloaded visualy. Did they give you any news of people who do visual therapy? You must be really getting sick of trying to pay for all the extra therapy you get for Bobby.Sometimes it feels like that's all we pay for but I know in the end it will be worth it.
Teresa
EMily and Mike have both been tested for vision therapy and I was able to do exercises with both of them at home to help correct it. Emily should have had actual vision therapy but it would have cost me 3K. However, if she was on an IEP it would have been covered. Check to see in your state if VT is considered a service like OT, etc.
Vision problems that benefit from VT include tracking but a whole lot more as well. It is basically how the eyes work together as a team and is developmental. Tracking, convergence, etc. Basically if the eyes aren't working together properly the person can see double, words will be dancing around on the page, etc. Some of the exercises they do for VT are alot like what an OT or PT will do as well as vision exercises.
Visual discrimination is a bit different. He is having a hard time discriminating one object from another. That could be a vision issue or a communication/comprehension issue or an attending issue. It may be good to get his vision tested by a developmental eye doc to rule vision problems in or out. An example of vision discrimination would be if you are doing PECS and there is an array of 2 or more pictures to choose from. A child with a problem with visual discrimination may pick up a picture card to hand to the adult but they may not pick up the right one. He would just pick up a random one rather than looking at them and discriminating which one he wanted. In this case it could be vision or it could be a lack of understanding what the pictures mean.
It depends on the context of Jake's visual discrimination problems how to address it. Can you tell me more? It may be a matter of teaching him what she wants him to do or it may be he isn't seeing it properly.
Renee
I went through that with two of my ASD kids. One's HFA and the other's Aspie. They both had tracking issues, but I'd never thought anything about since it always seemed like it was the TV their eyes were fixed on, lol. Anyway, I had to take my HFA DD to the opthomologist for something else (Alternating Strabimzus) and he mentioned it too. He gave me excerizes to do with her at home. When the same excerizes worked on her little sister we took her in and sure enough, it wasn't just the TV.
~SG_1Niner
Tina,
Sorry for butting in on your post but this really interests me because I grasp all the other issues Jake has but this one kind of has me at a loss.By the way, we sold our house. Hooray! Now all I have to do is find somewhere for us to live(LOL).
Renee,
When Jake was younger if I told him to go get his shoes(always in the same place) and they were moved he just couldn't seem to find them. If he's looking for a particular Thomas train which I keep in a box he has a hard time locating it and will ask me to get it. Sometimes when I ask him to get something and if it's right in front of him he just dosen't "see" it. I have to be very specific and give him other verbal cues. He can easily identify things in books and his pec cards have never been an issue. What ya think?
Teresa
THats ok, butt right in!! Conrgats on the house!
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My kids do the same thing all the time though each a bit differently. I always thought it had to do with 2 things. First visual overstimulation and second poor executive functions.
Visual overstimulation is common amung people with ASD as is many kinds of overstimulation. They cannot distinguish out the important stimulus in the background of all that other STUFF. It all gets thier attention with the same importance and they really have a hard time seeing the object in a field.
Cait has MARVELOUS visual skills. YOunger they were tested at near savant level and yet put her shoes on the floor of her room with what ever else she has left out and she will never find them which leads me to the second part. Poor executive functions. Executive functions is the brains ability to organize and prioritize. Most of us look at a floor of chaos when looking for shoes and we start with a plan. We think of what the shoes look like and we put that picture in our heads. Then we start scanning the floor with the purpose of finding the shoes usually starting in one area and systematically scanning. The shoes will practically jump out at us if they are there. Kids with executive functions problems of this sort can't do that on thier own. Their brain just doesn't work that way. They can't come up with a plan and carry it out naturally or problem solve if something has been moved unless they are specifically taught a plan to do so (which takes a long time btw)
Mike is better at finding things usually. Better than Cait, not as good as an NT kid mind you. Comparitively better but his big snaffu is his lego's. He has a box of legos and it is literally a tantrum every time I make him clean them because he is afraid he can't find his legos in the box again. I actually went and bought him a bunch of little boxes to separate the legos into and that only made things worse because now there were more areas to scan and lose things. So we are back to the tantrums if I make him. HOnestly I have been sneakily doing it myself. I tell him to clean up and I get piles of legos all over his bureau, desk, shelves. Then I go through when he is not there and put them in the box. He doesn't seem to notice and it hasn't been a problem. Slowly I will work towards getting him to do it until it isn't an evil thing to put them away.
Renee
Teresa