Warning signs I did not see

Looking back now there were so many signs to Liam having vision problems. He does not fit in the typical mold, but whats new.

Liam was a transitional kindergartner in 2012-2013.  He had a great teacher and learned a lot. Because he was a TK I did not push academics with him. I knew he was going to repeat so I did not see the need to push him. At the end of the year I got his report card and it showed that he still missed some letters in the alphabet and was not blending words. I was a little surprised, because the teacher he had is incredible. I decided to work with him over the summer so that he would have a jump start. After a month and half I let it go, because it wasn't clicking. He still knew some high frequency words from school, but would guess a lot. For example if he saw the word "Tree" he would say it was "the". At the time I did not know that he was just seeing the T and the E. So to him it was "the". This is a tracking issue. It was hard on my husband to understand him having a tracking issue. He said to me "this kid can catch and hit a ball, he does not have a tracking issue". I had to explain to him that there are different kinds of tracking issues.

When he was little like 3 years old we took him to his first 3-D movie, because his sister begged to go. Liam wore the glasses for a total of 2 minutes and cried. He kept saying "no glasses". I just thought he was too little and it scared him. When he was around 5 years we took him to another one and he did not cry, but refused to wear the glasses. When the Vision Test revealed he had a hard time seeing 3-D, I had an AHA moment. Liam does not like the Toy Story ride at Disneyland. He does not like to wear the 3-D glasses during the ride. It was starting to all make sense now.


When he started Kindergarten this year he was coming home with headaches. I thought it was because of the medication he was on for U.C. Then he started saying he could not see little words. The day that changed everything was when the kids and I were at the skating rink with our friend Jenny and her girls. I started to tell her about Liam's headaches and him saying he can't see little words. She asked if she could take him into the party room at the rink and test his tracking. I said "sure". One thing I noticed outside the window was that he told her he could not see the chart she was holding up. She kept bringing it closer to him until he could see it. Then she had him do an exercise and he did just okay. Then she asked him to follow her finger with just his eyes until she touched his nose. He lost track of her finger.Then she asked him to follow her finger while she made it go in a big circle. Again he loss track of it. We talked for a bit while the kids skated.  I said " I should just call and have him evaluated". At the time I just thought this kid needs glasses. Jenny on the other hand thought this kid needs VT. I took everyone home and we were sitting in her drive way and I said" Its 4:30 do you think the office is open?' Jenny said "were calling right now to find out". I made the appointment right then and there and that's when our journey started.

After we got the results of Liam's VT testing, Dr. Griffith put down some suggestions of activities to have Liam start. She wanted us to encourage   building blocks, puzzles, and similar highly spatial/visual manipulatives. When I read that on the report I was shocked, because those were activities I have never been able to get him to do. Again another AHA moment.