Vision Therapy | ADHD Information

Hey all - my daughter has always complained about not seeing well.  She says sometimes it is fuzzy and she gets headaches.  Well, after taking her to our eye doctor atleast once a year to check it out (they always say she has perfect vision), I have researched further and am taking her to see a professional in vision therapy.  They also have success stories with ADHD-diagnosed children.  Some writing that they wish they had found this earlier, etc.

Anyway, has anyone researched this or even heard of it?  She could literally have vision problems with focusing and causing her to avoid doing so!

Hmmmm....

I've researched vision therapy intensively and posted on message boards.  My son is dyslexic and has visual/spatial organizational deficits.  Vision therapy is suppose to help with the visual/spatial.  The feedback I have received has been either negative or marginal.  There used to be a forum member here, who had a friend whose son used it, and he had great results, but that is the only truly positive feedback I have received.  Most people say that there was some positive gain, but they question whether the gain was worth the money and time spent; other people say that they could not see any gain, at all. 

I would approach it with caution, personally. 

bump - anyone, anyone???

My son has just received vision therapy for a year. It was expensive and very time consuming, but it really changed his life.  It changed some very specific problems that he had.  He still has AdHd. It did change his ability to focus with medication or not talk in long monologues with friends.  Social skills class and extra help in P.E. are what we are now pursuing.

We had an eye that moved out. He is now able to control it.  He had terrible spatial awareness. He would bump into tables and children. Part of it was impulsive which was helped by the medication and part of it was doing tons of work book type activites with eye patches etc.  He was able to get control over his body.  He threw balls and caught them from a net this skill improved.  He has terrible vision/motor skills.   

I did the exercises at home for about 20 min. every day no matter what. Last spring my son could not read graphs and maps. He is now in 2nd grade. Through exercises at the V.T. and additional workbook sheets over the summer, he is able to do those tasks with ease.  He may never be able to hit a ball with a bat, but he can throw and catch decently.  They also worked on memory games, and I believe this has also helped him. 

He did inherit his poor ball skills from me. My son was a good reader when he entered the program even with poor tracking skills. So, I can't say if he improved from the VT or just materity.  He is an advance reader, but I think he picked that up on his owm.

I knew two people that had used this specific doctor.  We had great success with the areas my son needed.

 

Feel free to e-mail me.

 

I guess I've always looked at the vision problem and the ADHD as seperate issues. Like I said, if you go into things with reasonable expectations about what it will and won't do, you'll be happier. (Note to crazymama: I not suggesting you went in expecting something more - I'm just talking in general terms here.)

By the way, I forgot to mention before that my daughter had VT two years ago and was just recently diagnosed with ADHD and put on med. In other words, medication had nothing to do with her dramatic turn around in reading.

For us, the VT was worth the time and every cent. But I understand why others might remain skeptical and hestitate. Shoot. Even after all the great results, I was somewhat skeptical. When my daughter recently said her eyes were bothering her again and I took back, I was sure the VT folks would recommend more therapy (and money!) But, they didn't. They said, her eyes were working together fine and sent us on our way. (We later got reading glasses to help her with small print but that was something we suggested, not them.) My point is, not every VT place is going to be just after your money.


My son went to vision therapy, and it did help, but not as much as I thought it could as he was not able to pay attention and focus.  I wonder if we can find the right med if it would get better?  His eyes jump everywhere but where they should be.My daughter was diagnosed with Covergence Insufficiency a couple of years ago. (CI means the eyes aren't working together when doing near work. Kids with it typically miss small words, skip lines when reading, start out okay and then fall apart mid-page and pretty much do everything within thier power to avoid reading.) I had the opposite experience as the other poster, though. We did extensive reasearch, too, including lots of interviewing of other parents. Everyone I talked to had nothing but great things to say about vision therapy. (The worst thing I heard was "It sort of helped.") Even so, we were very skeptical about the whole thing, but decided it was only money and we'd give it a shot...the results were dramatic. After about 4 months of therapy, my daughter was back to reading at grade level. And the next year, when she took the standarized tests, her reading score went up 60 points!

Now, having said all this, you have to remember that vision therapy won't cure ADHD or learning disabilities. As long as you don't expect it to fix everything, you'll be okay. Since I'm here, we are still obviously dealing with ADHD. But reading? That's no longer a problem for my daughter. I'd recommend you just check it out for yourself. Go to the appointment and see what they say.

Feel free to email me if you'd like ask more questions. Good luck!

I am rereading my post. I meant to write that it DIDN'T help/without medication.

change his ability to focus without medication or not talk in long monologues with friends.

He still has AdHd.  But, it really helped with other areas.

The greatest change is that he in no longer falling and bumping into everyone.  My husband took my son to a carnival yesterday and was amazed that he threw a baseball and won a prize. A year ago, he couldn't even throw a ball a few feet. He would just drop the ball by his own feet.  By improving his right and left awareness, it seemed to help his coordination.  

My son's school work also looks much neater.  He writes in the margins. I just received some graph and map worksheets back, and he received all A's.    I saw a flyer that said children could be misdiagnosed with AdhD, but really have vision problems.  I think that is pushing it.  I also question the claims by some eye doctors that they can cure LDs. My son certainly still has AdHd. But, VT has really helped him in a lot of areas.

 

Wow - thank you so much everyone!  That is just what I needed.  Oddly enough, my daughter is top of her class in reading, but when it comes to writing, she rushes.  The words are a lot of times right in front of her on the board or even on the paper and she just writes them too fast and misspells them.  I can't decide if she is just is rushing it, or if she can't focus on the word in front of her. 

I guess I will go and see what they say.  I will keep everything in mind that you have suggested.  Thank you again!