My 9 y.o. son was tested yesterday for possible vision therapy because he
reads backwards at times, writes numbers or letters backwards occasionally,
can't seem to scan a page correctly, and thus, reading has been a struggle,
although he is improving, it has been slow! Anyways, as he is getting tested,
I find out he is seeing double, which he never thought to mention to me! The
doctor told me his eyesight is affected by his hypotonia (low tone) and when
his eyes are in a relaxed mode (which is how our eyes usually are unless
we're trying to focus hard on something), his eyes go outward and he sees
double. For high tone people this is usually reversed, with the eyes going
inward naturally in relaxed mode. So life is a constant struggle: Here you
have a child who is always struggling to keep his eyes focused so he can see
correctly and have good balance and coordination which leads to fatigue and
eye pain. His walking is affected by poor balance issues and his speech is
also affected by the low muscle tone. It is a viscious cycle, isn't it?
Anyways I'm feeling really downhearted because as the one primarily involved
in helping with his schoolwork, I have been frustrated with his reading in
the past and have expressed that frustration because he may know the word on
one page but not the next page. Then to find out he is struggling because of
vision problems really makes me feel ashamned that I didn't realize other
issues existed. More surprisingly, is that the O.T.s over the past 3 years
didn't pick up on this. So we'll be starting vision therapy for at least 6
months and I'll let you know the results. Cindy