Liam's Progress with Vision Therapy Week 12

Liam just completed week 12 of Vision Therapy. He is improving everyday, which is so exciting. Little by little something will become easier to him. This week we had to continue an exercise called Michigan Tracking. This exercise is timed and Liam has to circle letters in alphabetical order within a paragraph of words that make no sense. In the beginning he had to do this with pretty big font and one eye patched. It would take him anywhere from 5 minutes to 3 minutes depending on which eye and how tired his eyes were. It was hard for him, especially with his letter reversal. This week he was able to do the exercise with both eyes at the same time as well as the font size was two sizes smaller.  I am happy to say he completed them in 2 1/2 minutes. At the beginning he would not have been able to complete the taste with such small font. Here are some examples:

Biggest font and he was patched

One font size smaller not patched

Smaller font not patched

This was pretty exciting results for us. He also started reading BOB books to me this week. He still has trouble but instead of guessing what the word is he is trying to sound out each letter. This is because he can finally start to see each letter clearly. AMAZING!!!!

Dr. Anna Griffith: Strengthening Eyes for Learning

Click on the link below to read a great article about a fantastic Optometrist in Chico, CA who specializes in Vision Therapy! Liam goes to her as well as many other kids we know. She is amazing and such a blessing to Liam. Can't praise her enough.

Picture provided by North State Parenting

http://northstateparent.com/2013/11/dr-anna-griffith-strengthening-eyes-for-learning/

20/20 Isn't Everything - A Child's vision is critical to learning

This is the best video to show how Liam and kids like Liam see. I wish all teachers could experience this so they could better help their students.

Vision Therapy Update

Its been a few weeks since I have updated. Between all of us getting sick, going on vacation then me having surgery I am a bit behind. Liam's Vision Therapy is going really well. He isn't fighting me nearly as much and I am grateful for the days just gets down to business and does it. It's not everyday, but I will take those days and appreciate the progress. We are on week 8 and the improvements are showing.

The first BIG improvement both Mike and I saw was when we went to Disneyland last week. Disneyland has been our only family vacations for the past three years. Our kids love it as do Mike and I. My kids were the perfect ages when we have gone. They were little enough to take in the magic and light up when they saw the characters. They loved all the kiddie rides and thought Disneyland was the happiest place on earth. Then they became a little older and loved all the thrill rides for the most part. Savy still hates Tower of Terror, but this last trip Liam was tall enough for California Screaming. He loved it and wanted to ride it several times. It was awesome being able to experience every stage with them. Okay so back to my main point. 

Over the years Liam hated the Toy Story Mania ride. If you are not familiar with the ride, its a 3-D ride that you shoot at different objects. Liam never wore the glasses and the most points he ever got was 4,000. I was super excited to see if he would like this ride after starting vision therapy. This trip he LOVED it. In fact we went on it 6 times. The fist time we went on it, he wore his glasses the whole time and scored 44,000 points. The third time his score was 55,800 and the last time he went on it he got 64,800 points. By far this was one of the biggest highlights of the trip. It was so awesome to hear him tell Mike and I that army men were jumping out at him, or that a ball flew at him. He spent so much time telling me what he could see that I could barely played myself. After the fist time riding it I immediately had to email Dr. G with my excitement. This was HUGE!!!!!

Wearing his 3-D glasses

Liam's score was the blue 55,800, mine was in the red

 The next amazing thing for Mike and I was Liam's interest in Lego's all of a sudden. He has never had any interest in them. He did not even like the bigger size Lego's for little ones. We have a ton and he has never played with them. While on our trip we bought him a set at the Lego store. He spent easily 45 minutes looking for the perfect set to build with dad. He finally decided to buy the Grand Prix Truck with Race Car. It had 315 pieces and was rated for ages 5-12. That night he sat with Mike is my parents Motor home and built the entire thing. He went step by step looking at the manual with pictures, then finding the pieces and putting it together. Mike assisted, but for the most part Liam did it all on his own. I wish I had taken a picture of them assembling it and even the finish product. Mike had been waiting for a long time for this moment with him. A memory he will never forget.

This is the set he built

He still has a ways to go, but these BIG milestones are what keep us going. Vision Therapy is not easy. Liam works so hard everyday. He still gets headaches and gets frustrated. I still get frustrated and stress over if I am doing it right with him. But then we get experiences like these and it makes us realize all of his hard work is paying off. I cannot wait for the day that he picks up a book and sounds out the sounds and reads to me. Someday he will not flip his b,d,p,q,n,h's or think that X's are T's and H's are N's. I am so grateful for Vision Therapy and Dr. G. Liam's world is changing and is so exciting to watch!

Vision Therapy Week 4

Wow what a difference a week can make!!!! Liam had a great week! I think mainly because Dr. G made his therapy more fun and age appropriate. He was also thrilled to not be using the red/green glasses. Dr. G decided that we would focus on strengthening each eye separately so when we make his eyes work together it will be easier for him.

Our 1st exercise was flashlight tag. This was fun for the whole family to do together. Liam enjoyed this one and as the week progressed he was able to follow my flashlight faster and more accurately. It has become a fun game for the two kids to do when stuck inside.

The 2nd exercise was Monocular Accommodative Rock. Liam is patched and has a lens for this exercise. He has to read the pairs of letters within 2 1/2 minutes. Through the week he showed good improvement. 

Here are the results:

Right Eye: 16 pairs

                29 pairs

Left Eye:   29 pairs

                25 pairs

By the end of the week his results were:

Right Eye: 35 pairs

                27 pairs

Left Eye:   33 pairs

                31 pairs

The 3rd exercise we did was Vision Training Star with a Metronome. Liam had to be patched for this exercise with a bean bag on his head to keep it stable. Here are his results:

Right Eye: 45 bpm 

Right Eye: 46 bpm 

Left Eye: 45 bpm 

Left Eye: 46 bpm

End of the week:

Right Eye: 64 bpm

Right Eye: 65 bpm

Right Eye: 65 bpm

Left Eye: 62 bpm

Left Eye: 63 bpm

Left Eye: 64 bpm

As you can see his speed increased a lot and was able to track the Star fairly quickly by the end of the week. 

The 4th exercise we did was called 4 corners. Liam had to stand shoulder distance away from the wall and say the letters out loud. The letters were on four pieces of paper displayed in a box. We timed him for each eye which was patched. His results are as follows:

Right Eye: 3:00

Left Eye: 3:05

End of the week:

Right Eye: 2:27 

Left Eye: 3:11 

Left Eye again: 2:20

The reason I did the left eye a second time was because he had gotten under three minutes the day before so I wanted to see if it was a fluke. Turns out it wasn't.

The 5th exercise we did was Number hitting on wall. I made cards and taped them to the wall and Liam had to slap them in order. He got times for this exercise as well as patched. He loved this one. 

Results:

Right Eye: 19 secs

Right Eye: 13 secs

Left Eye: 26 secs

Left Eye: 18 secs

End of the week:

Right Eye: 11.4 secs

Right Eye: 9.4 secs

Left Eye: 10 secs

Left Eye: 9.3 secs

Overall he had some great improvement which is always nice for a parent to see. It keeps me motivated and knowing that we are doing the right thing for him. The best part of this week was the few tantrums we had. Liam got to play trains at Barnes and Noble twice and I got a few minutes to myself to read some books while he played. It was a win win for us this week.

Vision Therapy Week 3

Week three was a HARD week for Liam and I. We both had several ups and downs. Therapy at home was taking up to 2 hours a day. That is a lot considering Liam is in Kindergarten from 8:00-12:10. I try to feed him lunch and then straight to work hoping to finish by the time we get his sister at 2:10. Week three was hard on so many levels. His therapy was harder this week then the two previous weeks. Because is was much harder it took us a lot longer. Lots of tears and lots of breaks had to be taken. We got the new exercises assigned to us on Thursday. While in the office the power went out due to huge winds we were having. The office was dark except in the area next to the waiting room, where people pick out frames. We pulled up some blinds and Dr. G said "do you want to try the therapy here?" I said "sure why not give it a try." Liam did extremely well considering the circumstances. He had an audience of at least three staff members, as well as patients showing up for their appointments not aware of the loss of power. Liam completed all his therapy and I walked out feeling confident in our week ahead. 

We started the exercises as usual on Friday. It went alright. It was long, but he was still willing to do them. Saturday it took us two hours, because he was struggling. We had plans to go to a friends house for dinner so he kept going, because he did not want to miss out on the fun. Sunday is when everything went downhill. He threw a two hour tantrum refusing to do therapy. It was so hard on me and him. I felt like the worse mom in the world, because I had to be the "bad" guy. I told him he could not get out of the chair until he agreed to do his exercises. He screamed and cried in the chair telling me he was never going to open his eyes again. He also said he was going to rip everything off the walls when I went to bed and never do them again. After a while I could not sit there with him, so I got up and started to make dinner. I told him "when you show me you are ready by standing up and putting your red/green glasses on I will stop what I am doing." It was so hard standing my ground, but I kept thinking if I give in at this moment he will have my number and do this every day to me. Finally he gave in and we did the three hardest exercises. We had lots of tears for those three exercises, but when he was done he gave me a BIG hug and ran off to play. We ate dinner and after dinner he said "mama I would like to finish my exercises". I was so relieved and when dinner was done he sat down and finished. I was so proud of him. 

Monday morning after I took the kids to school I drove to see if Dr. G was available to chat. Fortunately she had 15 minutes between patients. She is amazing with so many encouraging words and great ideas. One that we came up with was that Liam could pick a day to have off. Instead of doing therapy 7 days a week he could do it 6 days a week. Then next thing she said was to tell him that if he completed the rest of his exercises for the week she would give him a break on the red/green glasses and Brock String. I knew this would be a key one, because he hates the red/green glasses and brock string.  I felt pretty good leaving her office and went home and got on Facebook.  There is a closed group that gives support to parents who are doing VT with their kids. All of them had amazing advice for me. The most frequent was BRIBE!!! It was so nice to hear from other parents that is was okay to bribe. I am not a fan of bribing, but in this case it is needed. You are asking your kids to do exercises that are hard and can make them dizzy, nauseous and give them headaches. They need some kind of reward when its done. Its hard for them to understand that when this is all said and done they will see better. In most cases these kids don't understand that they can't see. Liam tells me all the time "I am all better mama, I can see now." My response to him is always "Liam if you were all better these exercises would be easy." Its not that these kids can't see, its that they can't focus, track with both eyes, or see 3-D etc.. Most have compensated in one way or another and don't know any different. So making them understand they will be better when they don't think anything is wrong is hard. 

After all the advice from strangers, friends and family we came up with a plan. Liam was super excited to take a day off. He chose Sundays because its hard to do exercises when daddy is home from work. I don't blame him, it is hard to not being able to play with daddy the whole day. He did improve and get his exercises done on Tuesday and Wednesday because he wanted a break from the red/green glasses and brock string. In fact when we saw Dr. G on Thursday last week he said "I did all my exercises so no more glasses or string right?" Dr. G said "yes Liam that is right you get a week off." 

The next bribe or incentive that we are doing which was Liam's idea, was to go to Barnes and Noble Book store and play with the train set. So the deal is if he doesn't throw a huge fit all week, then we go play on Fridays after school. He also has come up with the idea that when he finishes his exercises for the day he gets a piece of gum. I can do this one with no problem. The last thing I did was had my husband have a chat with him. My husband works very hard and long days. He isn't present when we do the therapy. In Liam's mind I am the mean mommy that makes him do these awful exercises. My husband told Liam that he needed to do the exercises with no fits. He also said that he expected to get good reports from me when he got home. He asked Liam to make him proud and to do the exercises and make him proud. I wish I had the magic like my husband, but I don't. Liam took him seriously and I feel that this is another reason why its going smoother. I am so grateful to have a partner in this. Even though he isn't present for the therapy, Liam at least knows daddy has mommies back. 


All in all I am so grateful week 3 is over. It was a rough one, but I learned some new tricks. The last two days of the exercises he improved quite a bit. It is hard to really pinpoint how he improved last week because we changed some stuff up mid week. But overall we saw some positive changes. As I type this we are in week 4 and let me tell you it is a 100 times easier this week!

Vision Therapy Week 2

Week one down and I was feeling pretty good about it. We met with Dr. G and she had some new exercises for Liam as well as wanting to continue some of the ones we did the first week.  This week we jumped for 30 minutes a day to about an hour. I did not track the progress with the blocks. I continued this as play time for fun. She did not say to continue charting, but to just do it if we had free time.

She wants Liam to continue tracking letters on the wall one eye at a time. This time however we spaced them 2 inches apart instead of one.  The beginning part of the week his results were:

• Right eye it took 1 minute and 51 seconds with 7 errors
• Right eye it took 1 minute 18 seconds with 5 errors. 

• Left eye it took 1 minute 46 seconds with 5 errors
• Left eye took 1 minute 30 seconds with 3 errors.

By the last day of the week his results were this:

• Right eye it took 1 minute 17 seconds with 3 errors
• Right eye it took 1 minute 22 seconds with 2 errors
• Right eye it took 1 minute 11 seconds with 1 error

• Left eye it took 1 minute 11 seconds with 3 errors
• Left eye it took 1 minute 10 seconds with 2 errors
• Left eye it took 57 seconds with zero errors

I was so excited to see these results at the end of the week. Liam was so proud of himself that he got zero wrong with his left eye.  I think it was the first thing he said to Dr. G when he saw her.

The second exercise was a new one. It was called Visual Motor exercise which was timed or used a Metronome. For those who don’t know what a Metronome is you can look it up here. You don't have to buy one, you can get it as an application on your phone :)

The first Visual Motor exercise was with lines. It was a sheet a paper that had straight lines with a line at the right or left side of the line or a line in the middle. For this one Liam had to use his right or left hand and hit the table depending on which side the line was on. He had to use both hands when it was in the middle.  The paper was so confusing with so many lines that we started with the page being covered and only one at a time being visible. See picture below.

I would time him and tally up his errors for this one. The results from the beginning of the week to the end were HUGE!

I covered whole page except one. Went one by one

• First time it took 2 minutes and 30 seconds with 7 errors
• Second time it took him 2 minutes and 13 seconds with 6 errors

Last day of the week:

I did not cover page and pointed to each row

• First time he did it in 1 minute and 19 seconds with 6 errors
• Second time he did it in 1 minute and 9 seconds with 3 errors
• Last one he did it in 1 minute and 3 seconds with 2 errors.

To go from the whole page covered to uncovering it and just pointing to the beginning of each row was amazing. He even noticed how much he had improved.  We were both so happy.

The next exercise was similar but it was a paper with a line then it had a circle on the top, bottom or middle of line. He would have to say “Top, Bottom, Middle” to the beat of the Metronome.

Results:

First day: bmp (beats per minute)

• 45 bpm he had 4 errors
• 50 bpm he had 4 errors
• 50 bpm he had 3 errors

Last day:

• 64 bpm he had 1 error
• 65 bpm he had 2 errors
• 65 bmp he had 1 error

The last exercise was called the Brock String.This is a picture of Liam learning the Brock String with Dr. G

 This exercise helps him with 3-D and forces the eyes to work together. This one was by far our hardest. Liam had a TON of tears. He would get a headache and nauseous from this one. This one you have a string and it has three beads on it (green, yellow, red) and you have to put the string up to your nose and focus on the beads. Liam had to look at the first bead (green) and try to see it as one bead with two strings. This was super hard for him. He often saw two beads one string. The goal is to get the bead as close to your nose with both eyes focusing on it and keep it as 1 bead with 2 stings. We had a lot of trouble with this one. He also had to jump and go from the green bead to the yellow and then to the red and tell me how many beads he saw and how many strings. I was super confused about how to do this therapy with him. I think I did it wrong for the first 5 days. I ended up emailing Dr. G and she explained it better. We changed a few things up and it was a little easier. It’s kind of hard to explain his results because we did not do it right for many days but at the end of the week we were able to get the green bead from 44 cm to 20 cm from his nose. We are going to continue this one next week and maybe with more help from Dr. G I will be able to explain it better. 

A good tip for parents is to let your kids take a break. When Liam could not take it anymore I would let him run around the kitchen. This was especially fun because we have a no running in the kitchen rule. So he got to get energy out and break a family rule. You have to do what you have to do to get this therapy done. Good thing the starburst are still working too!

Week 1 Vision Therapy

Liam learning how to read the chart for his first therapy session. He was not thrilled about the pink eye patch. We changed that though and he was a lot happier. 

Liam and I were anxious to find out what Vision Therapy was going to look like for him. Every person’s therapy is unique to them. Liam’s therapy schedule looks completely different from our friend Alli because of his age, and eye issues. They have similar things that they needed to work on, but they tested at different levels. Each week we will meet with Dr. G and either get new therapy exercises or build on the ones he already is doing. My advice to parents is to buy a notebook and take good notes. Watch how the doctor administers the therapy. Listen to their cues and what they help the child with and what they let them struggle with. I also recommend taking video or pictures if it’s not distracting. A lot of the time I would refer to them to administer the therapy better.  Ask questions if you have them. It’s a lot to take in and you want to do the therapy correctly when you get home. You are the key to your child’s success.  After our appointment with Dr. G we went to the store and Liam got to pick our any candy he wanted (within reason of course). I told him that when he completed his therapy everyday he would get a piece as a reward. He was super excited about this especially, because candy does not exist in our house. Because of his Ulcerative Colitis we have to be careful with how much sugar he gets. He chose starburst which was perfect. It made him feel like he was getting something kind of big and it last a little bit because of all the chewing he has to do.

Okay so on to our first week. Dr. G started us off slowly. All together the exercises totaled 30 minutes a day.  The first exercise we had to do was one where Liam had to track letters on the wall one eye at a time. I would time him for this and tally up his errors. The beginning part of the week it was a big struggle for him. The letters were spaced 1 inch apart and displayed in two rows and he stood 6 feet back.  The first day his results were: Right eye took 2 minutes 23 seconds with 5 errors and his left eye was 2 minutes and 35 seconds with 6 errors. By the end of the week his results were: Right eye 2 minutes 2 seconds with 3 errors. His Left eye was 1 minute and 19 seconds with 2 errors.  I was really pleased with the results and I was excited to hear if we get to move the letters 2 inches apart.

The next exercise we did that week was a 3D exercise. He had to wear red/green glasses and I look at two circles and track them as I moved them further and closer apart. This one was hard for Liam. 3D seems to be a big struggle for him. I am not really sure there were big results from this exercise. I think it was a little hard for him.

The last exercise we did that week was blocks. You may be thinking blocks? Yes, something as simple as blocks was part of our therapy. Liam has never really liked playing with blocks. This was by far his favorite therapy so far. I would have him sort the blocks and time him. The first day he was able to do it in 1 minute 42 seconds with 0 errors, and by the end of the week he did it in 59 seconds with 1 error.  The other exercise we did with the blocks was having him duplicate patterns. This part was fun because I could have his sister be a part of it. She wanted to feel included so she would build a pattern and he would try to build the same one. At the beginning of the week his results looked like this:

1.     4 blocks missed one that was vertical
2.     4 blocks missed one that was horizontal
3.     5 blocks he did it perfect.

At the end of the week it looked like this:

1.      5 blocks zero errors
2.      6 blocks 1 error. Placement error
3.      6 blocks with 1 error. He connected one block that should not have been

So as you can see he improved from the beginning of the week to the end. Dr. G was very happy with his results when I emailed them to him.  The 3-D one she said was obviously difficult for him and so she said we would be changing that one up and trying something else for week 2. 

Over all I really feel Liam did great. Its a lot to ask him to go to school for four hours then come home and do more. But he was excited and did a good job listening. I found that if I let him choose which order to to the exercises it went a lot smoother. It gave him a sense of control. I kept it really positive and stayed upbeat with him. When he needed a break I would give it to him. 

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. 

Vision Therapy

In a few weeks I will be documenting Liam's Vision Therapy. We had him tested a few weeks ago and got all the results. He started his therapy Thursday September 19th, 2013. I need some time to process this new journey in our lives. As soon as I do I will share it with everyone. Wish us luck!