How do vision skills affect schoolwork?

 Here is some great info I came across on vision skills and why they are so important to be successful at school. I think this particular Q&A covers much of what troubles Will in the classroom.

Q.   What are the vision skills necessary for classroom achievement which can be provided through vision therapy?

A.   It has been estimated that 75 to 90 percent of all learning in the classroom comes to the student either wholly or partially via the visual pathways, the child cannot develop to his fullest potential.

There are numerous learned skills that the child must develop in order to achieve in the classroom.

The most obvious skill is that the child must already have learned to coordinate his two eyes together. If he has difficulty in this area, he might be perceiving overlapping images or -- if he is not perceiving in this manner -- he is using an abnormal amount of effort to overcome the coordination problem, thus reducing performance.

In addition, he must have learned accurate, smooth versional eye movements and quick, accurate saccadic movements so that he can point his eyes where he will with a minimum of effort.

Focusing ability must be adequately developed so that it can be maintained over extended periods of time. Also, accommodative flexibility must be present so that attention can be shifted quickly, smoothly and effortlessly from book to chalkboard and back to book.

Form perception must be developed so that he can make the many fine discriminations necessary to distinguish one letter from another and one word from another.

Span of perception must be wide enough so that he can read in terms of ideas rather than letter-by-letter or word-by-word.

The left-to-right directionality pattern must be firmly established so that eye movements are carried out in the conventional direction for the English language.

Visualization is one of the most important visual skills, and it is vital for reading, spelling, and particularly, abstract thinking.

In brief, these are some of the visual skills needed for success in school. But I would like to emphasize that since all of these skills are learned, it is possible to train them to a more highly skilled degree.

So, now that we have the diagnosis we need to get diligient about the the vision therapy. Setting the time aside for it has proven harder than I would have hoped. We got some done before school this morning, which was a good thing. I created a sticker chart, I just need to find a good reward for him that will motivate him to want to do it. You would think just making school like easier would be enough motivation! ;) Maybe not for a 10 yr old! 

Visual problems and sports performance

Borrowed from Vision Learning Center blog. We are realizing how much Will's vision issues effect every aspect of his life. It has become painfully obvious watching him play in his soccer games. His timing is off, he misses the ball, he jumps when he shouldn't. We are realizing it could be in big part to his vision. Articles like the one below help explain why it effects sports performance.

Efficient Visual Skills & Contact Sports - Gaining The Upperhand On Your Opponents

Friday 14 May 2010 | Posted by Dr. Mary McMains

Good Coaching and Talented Athletes are NOT Enough
Even with excellent coaching, practice and knowledge of the game, sports performance can be below potential with an inefficient visual system.  Many athletes live with visual systems that give inaccurate and/or incomplete information.  They deal with this by either over or under compensating during their game. Once properly coached and physically trained, inconsistent or inaccurate athletic performance is usually not due to an incorrect physical movement.  Poor performance can be caused by the movement being performed at the wrong time or place. 
You want an athlete to trust their eyes and react quickly to what they see.  You do not want an athlete to second guess or take the time to compensate around inaccurate visual input. 
Many professional coaches and teams consult with behavioral sports optometrists to help with picks, analyze the team and train individual athletes in areas such as volleyball, baseball, hockey, football, shooting and golf to provide them with a competitive edge and to ensure their athletes are performing at their very best.
Efficient Visual Skills are Vital to Consistent Sports Performance
Seeing clearly and good eye-hand coordination is NOT enough to support superior sports (or academic) performance. Elite athletes require a highly precise and aligned visual system to be accurate EVERY time.  Superior strength, ability or speed cannot make up for inefficient visual processing of the “where” and “when” of the ball and body.  Vision directs the intelligent movement of the body (the eyes lead the body).  The more accurately the visual system takes in and processes visual information, the more accurately it can direct precise motor movement. 
What is Vision?
Vision is a dynamic, always changing process of organizing, interpreting and understanding what is seen.  It is a process that integrates sensory and motor information generated by the eyes, brain and body to derive meaning and direct movement. 
It involves 70% of ALL pathways of your brain and integrates with all the other senses including vestibular (balance) and proprioception (knowing where the body is at all times).
Using your eyes to gain reliable and accurate information is important when you do the following:

• Interpret the distance of the ball, the net and other players in relation to yourself
• Estimate or follow the trajectory of the ball
• Motor plan to correctly calculate the effort needed to impact the ball
• Coordinate the eyes and hands to impact the ball in the way intended
• Maintain the right amount of visual attention and awareness of the ball, net and players at all times

Visualization is a vital visual skill and an important area to train for ANY athlete.  It is a fact that true professionals visualize more clearly and obtain more reliable information than average players.  Proper visualization primes muscle memory and can guide efficient action even before it is executed.
Binocular vision is necessary for three dimensional viewing.  It gives you figure ground relationships, visual balance, depth perception, and distance judgment.
How a Sports Vision Screening Can Benefit You
Sports vision screenings obviously do not provide you with ALL the information you need on your players.  It is a piece of valuable information that can give you a considerable competitive edge. 
Visual skill analysis can help you with the following:

• Aid in picking your team by providing more information on potential players
• Understand your players’ visual strengths and weaknesses
• Provide additional information to help position your players
• Remediate visual inefficiencies to improve your player’s performance

Just like any skill, visual skills CAN BE TRAINED.
Visual Skills Screened

• VISUAL ACUITY - This is a measure of eyesight, or how clearly you see. This ability affects visual discrimination and reaction time.
• REFRACTIVE STATUS - The amount of nearsightedness (myopia), farsightedness (hyperopia) and/or astigmatism as well as the equality of power between eyes (anisometropia).  Refractive status is related to clarity of sight and the effort with which clarity is maintained during a match.
• EYE MOVEMENT CONTROL – The ability move both eyes from one point to another (saccades) and smoothly track an object (pursuits) with speed and precision.  These abilities relate to accurately keeping the eyes on the ball.
• FOCUS FLEXIBILITY - The ability to modify and maintain clarity of focus with varying changes in target distances.  Focusing is involved with all aspects of play, particularly at a high level of performance.  This ability relates to the effort to maintain clarity of the ball, players, net and sidelines at all times and is a significant factor in visual fatigue.  Testing conditions are performed with both a distant and near target.
• EYE TEAMING FLEXIBILITY - The ability to keep both eyes simultaneously aligned on a target with changes in target distances, and maintain this alignment in various positions of gaze and during dynamic balance to keep the target fused into one image.  Eye Teaming is involved with all aspects of play, particularly at a high level of performance.  This ability relates to the maintenance of depth perception, spatial localization and can adversely affect effort and fatigue.  Testing conditions are performed with a near target, distance target, under stress and in motion.
• DEPTH PERCEPTION - A product of good eye teaming, fine depth discrimination is the ability to accurately judge and react to distances between objects in three dimensional space quickly and with precision. This ability relates to the prediction of the position of the players, ball and net, as well as the SPEED at which these judgments can be made.
• SPEED & SPAN OF RECOGNITION – The ability to take in an amount of visual information over a unit of time.  This ability relates to the speed at which an individual can recognize that a change in visual input has occurred.  It is key in making a quick response.      
• CENTRAL-PERIPHERAL INTEGRATION – The ability to recognize and respond to information in different areas of the visual field while still maintaining focus, fusion and visual attention on the target.  This relates to all game situations and is key in motor planning, maintaining court position, awareness of other players and reaction time.  Testing conditions are performed with no additional distractions and under stress (with a balance board).
• EYE-HAND COORDINATION – The ability to visually know where an object is and make the appropriate visual motor response by controlling, guiding, and directing the hands with coordinated visual input.  This ability relates to making the correct visual-motor responses when hitting or digging the ball. Testing conditions are performed with no additional distractions and under stress (with a balance board).
• VISUALIZATION – The ability to picture something in the “mind’s eye.”  This ability relates to remembering plays, court position, learning from past experiences and planning future action.

A little more info...

Convergence Insufficiency (CI), an eye teaming problem that occurs when the eyes point beyond a near target, such as a book.  When the eyes are pointed too far off the target, symptoms such as double vision, words moving off the page, headaches, visual fatigue and visual inattention can occur. 

I have been doing lots of reading online about Convergence Insufficiency and vision therapy and whatnot. Very interesting and I have found some bloggers that focus on it, too. For example: this one is a good one. Although it looks like he is no longer writing. 

I've also been reading some interesting info on Retained Primitive Reflexes which this gal also covers in her blog. I had never heard about such a thing until this morning. I read about it on a message board and something struck a chord. Could this also be something Will is dealing with? It seems as though it can lead to CI. I'll have to do more reading.

*** edited to add this link to Dr. McMain's newer blog and website. Apparently she dropped the original one I posted here back in Nov. 08 and moved on to another and even still on to her businesses website now. Vision Learning Center

So, the exercises so far have been hard to fit in. Between homework and soccer and some downtime it is really hard to make the time to do them. That sucks and I know it is just an excuse. And, I will figure this out. We made a sticker chart even. Now just to follow through. Not my strong suit! Plus it does not help that everything I read talks about how at home exercises are not nearly as effective as in-office vision therapy. I hate the thought of spending 12 weeks doing these exercises only to find out they did not help and we need to spend 12 weeks in office therapy!

I emailed Dr. L this morning asking her advice on the matter. We will see what she says. Plus I want to get the report. I am curious what it says.

Insufficient

That is the word of the day...

Or rather insufficiency I should say.

Yesterday was Will's appointment at the developmental/behavioral optometrist. We were referred to a doctor that is located in New Bremen, Ohio. Where is New Bremen? Well, it is approximately 2 hours and 3 minutes from my house. That is a long way to travel for a doctor appointment. But, this doctor, Dr. L, came highly recommended.

So, I picked him up from school at 12:30 and we traveled north. We arrived in New Bremen early and hit the local DQ. I had a Blizzard, he had a cheeseburger and a malt. We then traveled across the street to New Bremen Eye Care.

They took him back quickly and performed a quick, standard eye exam. I forgot all about the puff of air. Ouch. He did fine with it, but he had no warning. He came out telling me he got shot by a puff of air in the eye! Anyway, we then went back and waited for Dr. L.

Long story short, she spent 2 1/2 hours with us. She took a brief history of Will, we spoke a little about the report Dr. M did, and she asked some questions about his vision and school and whatnot. She then sent me to the waiting room and she took him into another room to do some one on one stuff. I waited about 45 minutes, until Will came to get me.

We then went back in the first room and she did lots of eye tests and exams. It was interesting to watch. Both what she was doing and Will's inability to hold still. He did great, but man was he fidgety.

So, she still has to score the tests she did with him, but she was able to to tell me that he has both convergence insufficiency and accomodative insufficiency. The testing may reveal more. She did a great job of explaining both disorders and I have done some more research on them myself. (see links) It is amazing how accurate the symptoms are at describing what we see in Will! Also, I read that some studies are finding a link between convergence insufficiency and ADD...

Dr. L. gave us a number of exercises to work on at home. Daily. I am going to make a chart. Both to incentivize Will and to keep myself in check. Daily exercise is something I am not good at following through on! Pencil push-ups, cross overs, wiffle ball following, and snow angels. Examples of his exercises.

So much of this explains his headaches and could help explain his inattentiveness. Dr. L. said that this won't be a cure all, but we could definitely see a huge improvement across the board with successful vision therapy! Music to my ears!!!

School Meeting

I am a bit behind on posting. Chris and I met with everyone at the school last Thursday. I really think it was a good meeting.

Mr.H, the principal, seems to be awesome. He really cares about the kids and it is easy to see. His attitude is that, while we want to provide assistance to make all children successful, we do not want to provide too much in the way of assistance, so that we make a child dependent on it. I don't know if I worded that exactly right, but I think you can get the gist.

I completely agree with that. Some of the recommendations in the psychologist's report were a little much, I feel. Plus, she was coming from a place where she does not know our school's math curriculum and what she saw as Will not being capable of 5th grade math, was really just an example of Will not having been taught how to do it, yet. Yes, he has major math issues, but the kid could not add mixed fractions because he has never been taught that!

Miss P was there and again, it is so easy to tell how much she cares about the kids. She was very excited to show us that Will had earned an A on his math test that week. He missed one problem and when she showed us why, it was just a typical "Will" mistake. It was a word problem and he pretty much just copied the second number wrong. He got that he needed to subtract, which was good. He just wrote $25.00- $12.00 instead of $25.00- $12.50. He did the math correctly, he just wrote it down wrong, and I guess did not doublecheck it. According to Dr. M, she suggests he be given credit for it because he got the concept correct and did the math correct, he just did not copy it down correctly. I don't really agree with that.

How else is he going to learn? Or is she saying he won't learn. That is just a part of who he is and he is going to miss things like that. So, if he gets the gist of it and performs the functions correctly then he should be given credit. I have mixed feelings, I guess. They certainly are not going to do that for him in high school, maybe not even in middle school. I feel like if we don't make him see where those mistakes are happening and we don't get him in the habit of double checking his work, then those mistakes will continue. Right? But, if the bottom line is that we want him to understand the concept of the problem he is working on, then he demonstrated that he did, maybe he should be given credit. That is a tough one...

So, Mrs. S, the counselor, wanted to know what we will be doing about the ADD and the anxiety. I don't know why, but I felt like she was asking what drugs we will be giving him. Of course, that is not what she said, but I took it that way. I told her that we were going to try other things first, that Will is not a behavior problem, which Miss P. had started the meeting out by saying as well. So, Mrs. S. then asked what tips the psychologist had given us to deal with ADD and the anxiety. I told her I would talk to her about that. Maybe she wasn't fishing for med info, but it felt like it.

Mr. P, the school psychologist, was there, too and he spoke a little about the speech/language pathologist of the school and that any testing they would do would indeed only be in regards to how any impairment might affect Will's school work. But, Mr. H. and Mr. P. agreed to ask her to observe Will in the classroom and share any observations she might have. We are going to stick with that for now and see where that goes.

There are a lot of great options for math help at LIS. There is a group called the Fact Finders Club that meets every morning before school on the 5th grade floor. IT is led by two intervention specialists and they drill the kids on their math facts. They track what they are working on and where they need more assistance and they work them through it. It does not cut into class time or anything. Will started that this morning. I'll be anxious to hear how it goes!

They also offer 'morning intervention' three times a week. I can drop Will off at 7:15 and he goes to the art room. There are 5th grade teachers in there, always a math teacher, plus reading, science and social studies. He can work on homework or just get some extra practice or whatever the teacher sees fit. Miss P. does it every other Tuesday, so we are going to start that tomorrow. My goal is to have him go every Tues and Thurs morning.

Will seems committed to these ideas, which I was really unsure about. I hope it goes well for him, so that it does not turn into a fight. I think it will really help him fill in some of his gaps and prepare him better to learn the new 5th grade curriculum as it is introduced. There is also a 'Math Lab' offered after school, beginning in another week or so. That is another option. I guess we will see how this other stuff goes first and then decide if we need additional help. A tutor is always an option, too.

So, the bottom-line from our meeting. I feel like we are off to a very good start. I am thrilled we did the testing and have shared it with his teachers. I think it will greatly help them help Will throughout this year. Everyone knows now, somewhat, what we are dealing with and can give him the assistance he needs and the encouragement he needs. We are no longer in the dark.

Next step: Visual Processing Evaluation tomorrow.

Guilt

Preparing for war... airsoft war

I am not typically a mom that spends a lot of time feeling guilty. At least, I don't think that I do. But, I have been feeling pretty guilty since our results meeting last week.

Guilty that it took two years for me to get this testing done.

Guilty that I didn't realize how BIG of a problem we were dealing with.

Guilty that I didn't push harder when I was made to feel like just a worry-wart mom.

Guilty that I accepted the answers of "I wish these kids came with an instruction manual" and "There is something there, but I just can't put my finger on it."

Guilty that I never followed through on tutoring last summer.

Guilty that my child apparently has an incorrect pencil grasp.

Guilty that I never looked more into his headaches.

I know, in my logical mind, that none of this is my fault. I know that I did what I could do. I know that nobody thinks I am a bad mom. But, I kind of feel like one. I feel like I have failed him over the last two years.

I pray this can all be turned around. With the help we are going to now be getting. I just know that he has some negative attitudes towards school and homework and that those are, in some ways, going to be harder to "fix" than the actual issues!

I think guilt is just going to be part of this. It has to be. He is my baby and there are problems. Of course, I am going to feel guilty. I'll just need to learn to get through it!

Now What?

I think that is my biggest question. Now what? Where do we go from here?

Thank God Will's teachers are on board with helping us out with this! The school seems to be as well. We have a meeting scheduled for Thursday morning with the principal, the school psychologist, the school counselor, both teachers and Chris and I. I have forwarded the report on to them, so we should all be on the same page.

I am not 100% sure what to expect at this meeting, but I am hoping we can all agree on putting some accomodations into place for Will to help him be successful. There were some suggestions in the report and I imagine the school will have some suggestions also.

We have scheduled the Visual Processing Evaluation for next Tuesday. The doctor that we were referred to is in New Bremen, Ohio. That is two hours away. Ugh! So, I will be picking Will up from school after lunch on that day and he and I will be traveling north. The eval is supposed to take up to two hours and then we will be driving back. A looooong day, to say the least! I pray we get some answers there. I feel very hopeful about that.

We will speak to the school about potential speech/language evals, though the report highly recommends we seek private testing, that will not be as educationally based. It would be nice to take advantage of the school's S/L pathologist, but we shall see. I want to do what's best for Will.

We need to either find a private math tutor for him or figure out if the school can handle the remedial work Will needs. There is a Math Lab after school two days a week, so that is a possibility. I just need to find out if it will be "enough" for him. And how many students are in it? If 50 students come, then I don't see how that will be helpful to Will.

Lots to figure out. Thank God it is the beginning of the school year and we are able to know all of this now and put into place what we can to help make 5th grade a good experience for Will.

More to come...

The Results are In

(Sorry, it's taken me all weekend to get this posted)
So, Chris and I met with Dr. M on Wednesday to go over the results of the testing Will had. WOW! We are overwhelmed to say the least! We have a very long road ahead of us, I am afraid.

I think this post is just going to be the nuts and bolts of the results. I don't have the actual report in hand yet, but I can put down what we were told. I am still processing it all, so I am not going to (I don't think) go on and on about how I feel and what I think about it all, yet. I will save that for subsequent posts.

So, bottom line. Will has/is ADD. He has some major working memory issues. She suspects he has a Visual Processing/Percetual Disorder, but she cannot diagnose that. We need to go see a developmental optometrist for that diagnosis. She also highly suspects some receptive and expressive language issues. See, I told you, WOW!