Vision Therapy Evaluation – Results (Red Flags)

So, I wrote previously that we had our parental consultation for my oldest’s Vision Therapy evaluation. The results mostly indicated my child was on par with her peers with only a few “red flag” areas, in their opinion. Sections in quotes are taken directly from the letter they wrote to us.

Visual Motor Integration- Her VMI is below normal. This is then broken down into three parts to see where the further problem can be pinpointed. Visual – Her brain processes what she sees fine. Integration – She is within the average range (albeit low) in how her brain communicates what she sees to action. Motor – Her (fine) motor skills are definitely below average.

Other tests confirm that fine motor skills (showing up for me in drawing, coloring, and handwriting) are below normal range. These results are consistent with what I see every day. You could say she is “just messy” and assign more practice. But this would be torture for some, especially if they truly have a developmental issue.

Left/Right Orientation

One test checked her knowledge of rights and lefts for her own self and others (mirror image and 90/270°  orientation). She doesn’t have this skill set down and is behind her peers developmentally because of it, according to this test.

General Movement

They tested balance with eyes open and closed. She scored more than a year and a half beyond her age group in these balance tests. However, her bilateral integration is that of someone more than a year younger. She has limited ability to use both sides of her body in a coordinated manner.

This means that if she was in dance or gymnastics, she wouldn’t be very good at it. Swimming strokes are difficult for her to execute properly. Some other sports activities would be challenging because of her bilateral limitations.

These deficiencies could be addressed by physical therapists, they told us, but they cover them as part of the whole package.

Dyslexia Determination Test

They defined dyslexia as a written language coding dysfunction that results in a secondary comprehension problem. They break up the decoding process into two areas – “phonetic word analysis” and “eidetic word analysis.” If your angular gyrus says it knows the word already, they say you process it as a “whole word.” Unfamiliar words require the help of “wernicke’s area” where phonetic analysis takes place.

Their testing requires the child to read sets of words that are normed by grade level. Once they determine what level of words the child can no longer “decode” (read correctly?), they give a spelling test on all the “phonetically irregular” words that their testing said were “sight words” (defined by them as words read correctly within 1-2 seconds). If a child performs poorly on this section, they believe this shows a problem in the angular gyrus section of the brain because the child “cannot visualize the words as a whole.”

“Next, the child writes the words they could not identify by sight or phonemic decoding.” So, any words she pronounced wrong or said she didn’t know, she was asked to write “the way they sound” (Note: not with correct spelling. “Calf” would “correctly” be written for this tests as “kaf.”) This is their test of Wernicke’s area of the brain for problems with “phonemic decoding.”

On this test, she showed that she can decode two grade levels above her peers (one grade level above where I have her in homeschool). Her spelling was atrocious. Her phonetic versions of mispronounced words were graded as correct. This meant they scored her “sight word encoding” as being mildly deficient and her “phonemic encoding” as being above normal.

They also tested silent word reading without the requirement of pronunciation. Then, they used two subtests to check “sight word” and “phonemic decoding” to see how quickly and accurately she could pronounce printed words (real and made-up). Her silent word reading score (test 2) was slightly above average. Her sight word efficiency and phonemic efficiency scores (test 3) were also slightly above average.

I am no expert, but these three tests taken together showed mixed results. The Vision Therapy experts interpreted them to mean she has “mild visualization deficits and no phonetic word analysis deficits.”

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In the next post, I will outline other tests they performed & my observations as well as their overall summary and suggested plan for therapy. I will also have a post specifically about the dyslexia determination and what happened with the VT doctor when we were discussing the results of that test. Finally, I will lay out our plan.

Why Did I Ask about Vision Therapy?

What caused me to bring up vision therapy in the first place?

Honestly, if I wasn’t working with my child daily as part of homeschooling, I don’t think I would have. Child #1 might be referred to as an “auditory” learner. She loves to be read to, but complains bitterly at having to read anything herself. It is “too hard.” She can read at a second grade level, but her comprehension is very low. I have been known to ‘bait’ her by reading to the end of a chapter that completely leaves one hanging. Then, I will carefully close the book while she BEGS for me to read “just one more page.” I hand it to her and tell her she can read the next page herself. She desperately wants to know what happens next, but appears to be more than she can get herself to trudge through to find out.

If she were in “regular” school, I would probably say she was lazy.

Her (manuscript) handwriting is horrid. She can’t color within the lines without giving herself a headache. She absolutely hates writing anything with a pencil on paper. (I have started calling this her “pencil phobia.”) She will write using markers on the white board, however. She loves to use side walk chalk outside.

Compared to her peers, she is only about half as accurate at hitting a ball with a bat.

So, I questioned. Is there anything we can do to help her learning be smoother? Is she having issues totally unrelated to motivation or ability – something physical or mental (related to her eyes) – that is causing her to have to work harder to achieve the same results as other children her age?

Vision Therapy Parental Consultation

We had our long-awaited parent consultation meeting for Vision Therapy (VT) this week for our oldest. Let me start by saying that if I had to do this all over again, I would definitely ask for the evaluation again. That said, we are probably not going to go forward with VT for our daughter. I will go into the reasons after I lay out the testing results and the therapy recommendations. I plan to break this into several posts for ease of reading.

Why Ask for Vision Therapy? [Summary]
Child #1 has alternating accomodative esotropia in botheyes. She wears glasses (withprogressive lenses) that help correct her eye turn and help her see 20/25 or better bothfar and near. She does not have a “weak eye” – bothwork, just not together or at the same time. She has “monocular vision.” I have written some previous posts about her eye sight. The reason I asked about Vision Therapy was because as I work everyday withher, I see things. Things that most parents may not notice because they aren’t there with the little details all the time. I am not a detail person, but a picture was being painted and I wanted to ask the experts what it meant. I have a whole post on this that I’ll put up later in the week.

Process for Us
Our local ophthalmologistreferred us to someone he has worked with previously and though a lot of. the first of what ended up being three (could have been four) evaluationappointments was a dilated, in depth eye exam.

Here are the tests performed at that appointment:
Eye Health examination with dilation
Visual Acuity – Distance and Near
Refraction
Oculomotor Evaluation

Then, we went to two one-hour appointments where our child took a series of normed, some timed, some untimed activities/tests. These were designed to find out where she is compared to her peers (four month span around her age) to diagnose if she has visual, visual-integration, or visual-motor processing issues. There were fine motor, gross motor, balance, coordination, visual memory, reading, phonetics, spelling, and other tests.

Here is the list of them:
Beery Developmental Test of Visual-Motor Integration (VMI-5th)
Tests of Visual-Perceptual Skills (non-motor) – 3rd Edition
Wold Sentence Copy Tests
Piaget Right/Left Awareness Test
Grooved Pegboard Test
Reversal Frequency Tests
Dyslexia Determination Test
Auditory-Visual Integration Test
Bilateral Integration Test (Angels in the Snow)
Test of Word Reading Efficiency
Test of Silent Word Reading Fluency

Results
Our daughter’s glasses prescription is right on. This doctor disagrees with our local doctor in regards to giving “progressive lenses” to children. Lined bifocals are preferred because then the child and adult can tell what level of magnification the child is using to look at something. (At least, that is what this specialist told us.) Our child’s eyes do not work together. One eye focuses, then the other. They do not have to “team” and our child is not at a good age (too young) to work on this. Eye focus is slower than average and eye movement (“tracking”) is not smooth. These two things can be addressed with vision therapy.

The other tests showed that our child is mostly an “average” child – tracking around her age group with a few skills where she performed higher than her peers and a handful of “red flags.” The “red flag” results will be in my next post.

Her official diagnoses were:
Developmental Delay
Developmental Dyslexia
Esotropia (Alternating)
Suppression of Binocular Vision
Visuo-Motor Dysfunction

In summary, they believe our oldest “evidences functional and perceptual visual deficiencies in eye-hand coordination and visual directional concepts.” In addition, they believe she “has a visualization deficit that causes spelling and sight word recognition problems.” More information in the next post.

Hiatus

Sorry that I’ve been gone for a bit. Things have been hectic and my evenings have been taken up by making Child #2’s Halloween costume. I am not a seamstress by any stretch of the imagination, so I have been working on it after the children go to bed instead of being able to get on the computer. I will post pictures of my first-time-ever attempts next week if I get the chance. I only have some sleeves, hemming, and trim left. . . I hope.

My spouse was off for a few days as part of his rotating shift work and I seem unable to get on the computer when he is home. I like to believe that is because I am enjoying my time with him. Sometimes that is the case. We have had many activities and a couple of trips. We were able to have the Vision Therapy consultation this week and I plan to write about it in upcoming posts.

My father had surgery to address the health issues he has been experiencing. There have been some complications, so it looks like he will be in the hospital longer than expected. Please pray for healing for him and wisdom for the doctors.

Toddler Mayhem!

I have written before of my little Tasmanian Tornado – Child #3. She writes on walls, spilled fingernail polish on our carpet, spilled laundry detergent on the carpet,and gets into all sorts of mischief. The problem has accelerated in recent days. She has managed to tear up a small notebook of paper that belonged to her older sister, break two bracelets – neither of which belonged to her, tear up drawings done by Child #2, get into the (“childproof door-knob-bed) (toy/clothes) closet numerous times to spread small toys around the house, smeared lotion on the carpet, used up several Band-Aids that an older sibling had squirreled away for emergencies, and in general, create mayhem in our house!

I realize she is bored. I have tried to remedy this by providing age-appropriate puzzles and toys – rotated every 15 minutes or so to keep up her interest. I have even sat her down with writing utensils and her own sheets of paper to attempt to distract her from her getting into things. Nothing works for long – and it usually ends up back-firing as she takes the items and strews them all over the rest of the house. Or, she leaves them on the floor where Child #4 picks them up and throws them down the stairs.

One acquaintance of mine suggested that I strap said child into a high chair for long stretches of time to keep her in one place and out of trouble.

Um, I’m not quite that desperate. But, if you have any other (more humane) suggestions, I’ll entertain them. Did I mention that she is the sort of kid who can get along without much sleep? She went to one nap at around nine months of age and rarely takes a nap now. If I ask her to take a nap and don’t lay down with her until she goes to sleep, I usually find her wreaking havoc in the room when I come back in to check on her.

And yes, I’m putting a lock on the closet door. She turns three in three months. She used to be my “easiest” kid.

A Wasted Vote

Many of you have already seen this, I am sure. However, I just ran into this sentiment again in an email discussion with a former mentor of mine. She felt compelled to remind me that we have a two-party system and I will be wasting my vote if I don’t vote for Sen. McCain or Sen. Obama. So, anyone who votes for the candidate(s) that lose wasted their vote? Anyway, I saw this and thought it was timely!

by Chuck Baldwin

When asked why they will not vote for a third party candidate, many people will respond by saying something like, “He cannot win.” Or, “I don’t want to waste my vote.” It is true: America has not elected a third party candidate since 1860. Does that automatically mean, however, that every vote cast for one of the two major party candidates is not a wasted vote? I don’t think so.

In the first place, a wasted vote is a vote for someone you know does not represent your own beliefs and principles. A wasted vote is a vote for someone you know will not lead the country in the way it should go. A wasted vote is a vote for the “lesser of two evils.” Or, in the case of John McCain and Barack Obama, what we have is a choice between the “evil of two lessers.”

Albert Einstein is credited with saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. For years now, Republicans and Democrats have been leading the country in the same basic direction: toward bigger and bigger government; more and more socialism, globalism, corporatism, and foreign interventionism; and the dismantling of constitutional liberties. Yet, voters continue to think that they are voting for “change” when they vote for a Republican or Democrat. This is truly insane!

Take a look at the recent $700 billion Wall Street bailout: both John McCain and Barack Obama endorsed and lobbied for it. Both McCain and Obama will continue to bail out these international banksters on the backs of the American taxpayers. Both McCain and Obama support giving illegal aliens amnesty and a path to citizenship. In the debate this past Tuesday night, both McCain and Obama expressed support for sending U.S. forces around the world for “peacekeeping” purposes. They also expressed support for sending combat forces against foreign countries even if those countries do not pose a threat to the United States. Neither Obama nor McCain will do anything to stem the tide of a burgeoning police state or a mushrooming New World Order. Both Obama and McCain support NAFTA and similar “free trade” deals. Neither candidate will do anything to rid America of the Federal Reserve, or work to eliminate the personal income tax, or disband the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). Both Obama and McCain support the United Nations. So, pray tell, how is a vote for either McCain or Obama not a wasted vote?

But, back to the “he cannot win” argument: to vote for John McCain is to vote for a man who cannot win. Yes, I am saying it here and now: John McCain cannot win this election. The handwriting is on the wall. The Fat Lady is singing. It is all over. Finished. John McCain cannot win.

With only three weeks before the election, Barack Obama is pulling away. McCain has already pulled his campaign out of Michigan. In other key battleground states, McCain is slipping fast. He was ahead in Missouri; now it is a toss-up or leaning to Obama. A couple of weeks ago, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Florida were all leaning towards McCain, or at least toss-up states. Now, they are all leaning to Obama. Even the longtime GOP bellwether state of Indiana is moving toward Obama. In addition, new voter registrations are at an all-time high, and few of them are registering as Republicans. In fact, the Republican Party now claims only around 25% of the electorate, and Independents are increasingly leaning toward Obama.

Ladies and gentlemen, Barack Obama is headed for an electoral landslide victory over John McCain. John McCain can no more beat Barack Obama than Bob Dole could beat Bill Clinton.

I ask, therefore, Are not conservatives and Christians who vote for John McCain guilty of the same thing that they accuse people who vote for third party candidates of doing? Are they not voting for someone who cannot win? Indeed, they are. In fact, conservatives and Christians who vote for John McCain are not only voting for a man who cannot win, they are voting for a man who does not share their own beliefs and principles. If this is not insanity, nothing is!

So, why not (for once in your life, perhaps) cast a vote purely for principle! Vote for someone who is truly pro-life. Someone who would quickly secure our nation’s borders, and end the invasion of our country by illegal aliens. Someone who would, on his first day in office, release Border Patrol agents Ramos and Compean and fire U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton. Someone who would immediately, upon assuming office, begin leading the charge to dismantle the Federal Reserve, overturn the 16th Amendment, expunge the IRS, and return America to sound money principles. Someone who would get the US out of the UN. Someone who would stop spending billions and trillions of dollars for foreign aid. Someone who would prosecute the Wall Street bankers who defrauded the American people out of billions of dollars. Someone who would work to repeal NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, the WTO, and stop the NAFTA superhighway. Someone who would say a resounding “No” to the New World Order. Someone who would stop using our brave men and women in uniform as global cops for the United Nations. Someone who would stop America’s global adventurism and interventionism. Someone who would steadfastly support and defend the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

“Who is this person?” you ask. Go here to find out:

http://www.baldwin08.com/.

Field Trip Ideas

Many homeschoolers think “outside the box” when taking field trips with their kids. The following is just a sampling of ideas about how to continue the learning experience outside the home and not break your budget in the meantime.

Many field trips are enriched by preparation, pre reading, and related activities as part of your curriculum. However, if you don’t have time for these, don’t let that keep you from going. Sometimes the trip itself will spark interest in further research or a follow-up activity. It could even set the stage for a career choice down the road!

Opportunities for Learning in Your Community
- Check out the neighborhood fire station, post office, city hall, or the county courthouse.
- Go to the library – Obviously, there is story time and sometimes there are free or low-cost classes, but don’t forget to check the bulletin board for listings of other activities in your area.
- See if a local bank, grocery store, TV station, or newspaper office gives tours.
- Hobby and craft stores sometimes offer low price craft time or projects on weekends or during the summer for the general public.
- Doctors, dentists, optometrists, chiropractors, dermatologists, and hospitals might let you go through their office during a less busy time. These places are a lot less scary when the children are not going for an appointment at the same time.
- Check with the fast food places nearby. Some places will give a tour and then a discount on lunch.

How Do They Do That?
- Find out if the local electric company or water treatment plant will explain how what they do there lets stuff be done at home.
- See if the local convention center venue will allow you to watch while they transform the arena into a hockey floor or set up for a concert. This can be a fascinating engineering or science field trip opportunity.
- Is there a planetarium at your local college/university? Call to see about behind-the-scenes tours with or without a short show for your homeschooling group.
- Contact your local Chamber of Commerce or Rotary to see if they know of local businesses or manufacturers that will open their doors to a small group. Sometimes manufacturers cannot let you out on the production floor, but they have a viewing window where the children can see the machines operating.

Helping Others
- Learn about the inner workings of a soup kitchen, homeless shelter, or thrift shop (Catholic Social Services, Salvation Army, etc.)
- Visit a pregnancy crisis center.
- Consider volunteering your family for a couple hours to help out someone running for office. This type of political work could be stuffing envelopes, knocking on doors to distribute flyers, or holding signs for a candidate.
- Habitat for Humanity and other service groups will take volunteers over a certain age to help with everything from mailings to actual construction.

Food, Fish, and Animals, Oh My!
- Make some connections at the local Farmer’s Market to see if anyone is open to a tour of their operations
- Contact your local office of the game & fish department. They usually have activities for children to participate in while learning about the outdoors or different types of animals or plants. Many are free or low cost.
- Visit a veterinarian office to learn more about what they do there, the variety of animals they see, and about taking care of a pet.
- Many state parks offer a great opportunity for nature walks, camping, backpacking, hiking, and sometimes horseback riding.

Museums & Zoos
- Some museums offer free or reduced admission during certain times of the week or year.
- Some science museums, children’s museums, and zoos provide reciprocal free or reduced admission to other museums within their associations. These are a great deal if you plan to travel or visit certain types of museums on a regular basis. The Association of Children’s Museums, Association of Science-Technology Centers, and American Zoo Association are examples. Membership rates vary greatly from museum to museum. Some have discounts for “educators” including homeschoolers. Doing some research ahead of time on the best rate can really pay off. Make sure to look at the fine print, because some museums will not allow you the discounted member rate if you live within a certain distance of the associated museum.

Theater and Music Performances
- Some theaters offer behind-the-scenes tours, activities for children, or special pricing on shorter/during-the-day performances for educational groups.

Try these websites for a few other jumping off points to find field trip ideas:
http://www.homeschool.com/Homeschool_Field_Trips/default.asp
http://gocitykids.parentsconnect.com/
http://homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/trips/FieldTrips.htm
Traveling With Children

Grim Thoughts / Musings on Kids

I responded to a friend’s email about politics the other night with a hugely negative overtone. As I went on and on about how neither major presidential candidate will be able to get the US out of the mess we are in, I realized how depressing it would be to read. So, I ended up by attaching some smiling pictures of my kids – including one of my youngest sitting in a pile of spices that he had emptied out of an almost full container of parsley (or was it oregano?). I listed a few things about each kid and finished with some thoughts on what keeps me going.

So, first some required reading:
- How did we get into this mess?
- One person’s opinion on what is coming.

Now, what I ended on, my kid notes – edited slightly for privacy.
Child #4 says only, “DaDa,” but understands quite a bit of what is said around him. He is a climber and has a habit of climbing chairs and other furniture to get at things he shouldn’t be into.

Child #3 continues to be quite verbose and is showing a memory just as impressive as Child #1’s at the same age. Her mind works at levels I had not imagined a two year old’s could.

Child #2 continues to be my artistic, imaginative, and soulful child. She is a girly-girl (always wearing a dress) but also the one who searches out every bug/worm/insect and animal within sight.

Child #1 is a leader (although not always a good one) and a great helper. She loves to go for bike rides with her dad and play with the oodles of children on our block.

They are all very different from one another and challenge me to be a better person and mom every day. It is amazing to be there when your child first grasps that _all by herself_, she can figure out that certain letters strung together tell a story that is fun to read! It is rewarding to see the smile on another’s face when she ‘beats the clock’ in her oral arithmetic practice. The little impish grin on a smudged face when you find her making mud pies with your cooking utensils is priceless. And everyone should see the backward “I know I’m not supposed to do this, but I’m going to do it anyway” look that my small boy gives me when he heads towards some forbidden object or destination.

Isn’t Socialization A Concern?

I was having a discussion this evening with a neighbor whom I also consider a friend. We have known each other 3+ years and her youngest is the same age as my oldest. We both love that our neighborhood contains oodles of children who hang out together and rove from house to house by two and threes or in a big pack. There are eleven kids between the ages of four and eleven in our cul-de-sac.

So, this neighbor and I were talking about school work – her kid’s and my kids’. The conversation turned to an acquaintance whose child just started kindergarten at the local public school. The teacher called the child’s mother the first week of school to let her know that the teacher believed the child already knew everything that would be covered that year in Kindergarten. The mother was glad of the phone call and asked what the next step would be. The teacher didn’t know, but assured the family that they would be involved at every step of the process. They were involved, although they had to push to get things moving past that one phone call. After over a month of testing and meetings, the school admitted that this five-year old wouldn’t get much academically out of first grade. He was beyond that level. The school would not even consider putting him into second grade. The parents of this advanced child have decided to pull him from the school at mid-term and homeschool him so that he can work at his own level in each subject.

My neighbor/friend asked in a somewhat offended tone, “So homeschooling is the only option?”

I was taken aback by the tone and the question and responded that it wasn’t the only option, but it was the one the family had chosen. Being able to personalize curriculum to your child’s level seems like a great option to me. It was my friend’s next comment that truly floored me.

“Well, that child will definitely have social issues.”

I queried her as to what she meant. I thought, “Surely, she isn’t worried about socialization?!?”

Indeed, she firmly insisted that the child will now be removed from his peers and “isolated” at home. His ability to fit into a group, deal with other people, and have friends would be in jeopardy. She pointed out that there would be a social stigma on this child and that every child needs the interaction that schools provide in order to get them “ready for college [socially].”

I was shocked. Not by the sentiment, of course. I have run across this idea from relatives, former co-workers, friends, and strangers. But, this neighbor had always seemed to accept (our) homeschooling as a positive option and I had never heard her express a negative opinion about it. Did she think that my children would be socially inept if I continued to homeschool them all the way through high school? The same children she sees almost daily interact happily with all the other kids on our block? I was amazed.

Coincidentally, I am currently reading a book called “The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling” by Rachel Gathercole. I’m not far enough into the book to see if it would address my friend’s concerns.

In the meantime, what are other options for really-far-advanced Kindergartners in a small town? Heck, what are other options in a big city? Would a private school have more options for this family? What would you do with a five-year old who was reading at a third grade level already?

Chuck Norris only trusts Ron Paul

Chuck Norris was a huge supporter of Mike Huckabee in the Republican Presidential primary. He seems to have learned a bit since then and commented in a recent interview on the Alex Jones Show that he doesn’t know who to trust [in Congress]. Then, he says he wishes Ron Paul would go down the line of Congress-people with him and tell him who is corrupt so he could “choke them unconscious. And stick them into a pile.”

I wasn’t a Mike Huckabee supporter, but Chuck Norris did some incredibly funny YouTube ads for him. I wish Norris would have wised up sooner. For more of the interview, click here.

Perhaps the Constitution Party could talk to him about doing some YouTube ads for Chuck Baldwin, for whom Ron Paul is voting.