Hello! My twelve-year-old son has been diagnosed with dyslexia, a disorder of written expression, and a binocular vision disorder. Vision therapy has been recommended, and I would like to hear from parents, who have used this therapy with their children. What did you think of it? How did you find a reputable provider? If you think the therapy was helpful, how long did it take before you started noticing improvements? My son’s writing disorder is very severe, so I also would like to know if you thought the therapy helped with writing.
Thanks!
I would suggest that you search the topic headings by page to find previous discussion on this topic. May 2005, for example, had about 12 posts about vision therapy.
From years of posting and reading these boards, I will tell you that the results are mixed. It is a miracle for some kids and useless for others. Others, like my son, were in between. That, I think, has to do with both the skill of the provider and the profile of the kid. Vision therapy does not teach a child to read so kids who not have the skills they need are not suddenly going to turn into good readers. Some therapist incorporate body work—more like OT—and that increases the success rate, although all kids don’t require such an approach. In my experience, kids who have motor issues are more likely to have vision issues that are connected to their vestibular systems which require body work.
It does seem to have a pretty good track record with the profile of kid you describe—who can read well enough but cannot sustain it and exhibits vision related deficiencies.
We also made vision related gains by improving my son’s decoding. Basically, as his decoding improved, it required less energy and thus he was able to devote more energy to tracking ect. What you have to judge is how automatic is your son’s decoding. If it is automatic and easy, then vision is a likely culprit. If it is not, you could have a combination of problems.
Beth