Vision Therapy Week 2 - READING Update

Our second week was a week full of ups and downs.  Alli has improved by leaps and bounds again, which is very wonderful to see.  She continues to work hard and keep her complaining to a minimum.  She cannot stand wearing the eye patch so after EVERY activity she rips it off and then it takes a while to get her to put it back on.  

One of the hardest parts of this (for me) has been the intense focused energy given to Alli.  Vision therapy is so different from our "school."  Anything that we do for school, we do together.  Jill listens to Alli's stories and draws a picture and is involved in all things.  For VT, Alli and I have to be alone so she can concentrate, so now we have this hour a day where Jill must leave us alone.  The funny thing is, JILL hasnt had a problem with this yet, it is only MY issue, so i think I need to let it go!!  She is content to sit on the couch and look at books, color, play with her animals, etc....so I am going to work this coming week on not worrying about a problem that doesn't exist!!

Knowing about the extent of Alli's vision problems has changed how I do her reading lessons with her.  She really loves the book we use, but now that she is nearly 1/2 through the letters are getting smaller, the sentences have more words per line and the words are closer together.  All of these things make reading incredibly difficult for her since she cannot track, focus, or use her eyes well together.

What I did was take the story in the book



And write it out much larger onto paper so she could see it better


I had her read me the one I wrote before we even got to the story just to see if she could do it.  She read it with almost no hesitation and only sounding out a few words.  Lots of the words she now just KNOWS which is so exciting.  

A few days later we got to this lesson in the book so i had her read it from the BOOK version and she struggled, skipped words, added sounds into words that are not there, etc....all the things she was doing before when I thought "WHY is reading such a struggle for her" but now I know SHE CANT SEE CORRECTLY!!!


Now, this morning, the most EXCITING thing happened!  Below is a picture of one of the activities she does for VT.  After she finished filling it in I asked her to read it.  I knew she could read IS, THE, and probably sound out BOB and PET.    Well, imagine my surprise when she said, "What is the name (i had to write the line for long a sound) of  (i helped her with sponge) Bob's pet?"




We have never gone over WHAT (and she even said it correctly, not with a short a sound) and in the past when we used sight word worksheets she could never remember OF or IS.  She is doing so incredible.  I am starting to see that there is light at the end of this "struggling to read" tunnel.

Update 4/29 to add that today when she read her story I watched HER instead of the words and she completely closes her right eye.  I asked her if she could just leave both eyes open and she said, "that eye is so tired!"  It is so crazy to me that I never looked at HER when she read, I always just looked at the sentences.  This is such a learning experience.

Vision Therapy Week 1


So our first week of therapy is completed and we both have seen the improvements.  Dr. Griffith also noticed her improvements since the last time Alli did the activities in the office.   Dr Griffith says that we are lucky to be homeschooling and be able to focus so completely on these exercises.  Alli likes our math games and Life of Fred books so we still use those and she loves the reading book we use "Teach your child to read in 100 easy lessons" so we are continuing those, but everything else is on hold for now.  Vision Therapy is hard work for her and I both, I am grateful we have the flexibility to do what is best for Alli.


Doing these activities is very draining for her and makes her sleepy, head hurt, eyes hurt, dizzy, etc....but she has told me she wants to see like everybody else so she works EXTREMELY hard and is very proud of herself.  

She told me, "I always wondered what this looks like to other people" pointing at a paragraph in a book I was reading her.


The activity that made Alli shake and cry was VASTLY improved in one week.  Alli has LOTS of trouble using her right eye alone on all of the activities, but that activity in particular was very troubling for her.  The first time she was able to read out 17 pairs of letters.  By the end of the week she could read 26 pairs, nearly double!!

Another activity that works on her tracking ability, she could barely get to the 2nd column letters on the first day, but by the end she was getting almost through the 3rd column.  

 By the end of the week Alli was pretty tired of the same activities so it is nice to change things up a bit.  The picture above is a Bilateral Motor Coordination activity that is helped to make children aware of direction which is a cause of letter and number reversals.  

Thank you everyone for the emails and comments and encouragement.  This  WILL not be easy, but  I feel like a new chapter has started in Alli's life that will send her in the OPPOSITE direction of where she was heading.  

"Learning disabled, special education, resource, slow, lazy, unmotivated....." all the labels she would have gotten had she been in school.  I wonder how many other children are mislabeled?

I have done extensive research in the last 2 weeks and there are two sides to the story, as always!  So various professions - for example pediatricians and opthamologists will say this is a "made up problem" or a "learning disability that is not correctable" and vision therapy wont help.  I have decided to believe in this therapy - I think the results will speak for themselves. 

I spoke to one mother (Shane's cousin's wife) who said, "Do you want me to tell you how wonderfully life changing it will be or how INCREDIBLY hard it is going to be, cuz both are true!"  She also said - It is the one thing in life that is TOO good to be true, but it actually is true.

In a few months I will probably have a much stronger opinion in one direction or another - I sure hope it is that vision therapy is changing our lives for the better)


Anyone who thinks maybe YOUR child (or YOU - Shane is getting tested in May) might have some vision problems, I list a few resources I have found to be IMMENSELY helpful and encouraging:
Websites to research:

SUCCESS STORIES:  HERE, and HERE and HERE (facebook page - VISION THERAPY CHANGED MY LIFE) and HERE (update 9/12/2013 now Alli is on here!!!  YAY)!!

Regarding dyslexia and vision connection - this site has an entire story but this is a good start.

More of dyslexia and vision

Symptoms of a vision problem

VERY THOROUGH QUESTIONNAIRE INCLUDING EVALUATION FOR PHYSICAL, READING, COORDINATION, SPORTS, ATTENTION, BEHAVIOR  (Alli scored 184 - an evaluation is recommended at 31...)

A video to watch


Thank you to everyone for your support!  We appreciate it a lot!!

Vision Therapy Day 1








 Alli and I have done about 20 minutes of her therapy today and most of it went ok, but she does NOT like the eye patch. One eye (I am pretty sure her left) does much more work, so for all her activities she has to wear a patch and do the activity with just one eye at a time to strengthen them separately before trying to get them to work together.

 One of the exercises is to use 2 different powered lenses and then read a page full of pairs of letter (the picture above and the lenses are below) 

So she reads 2 letters with one lens (power +2)  in front of that eye then i switch to the other lens (power -4) and she reads the next pair of letters, over and over for 2.5 minutes.  So she is continually having to refocus her eyes.  With her left eye this was challenging but she could do 22 pairs of letters in 2.5 minutes. Then I switched to her right eye (patching the left eye) and  she said, "But how am I supposed to do this when there are two lines of everything"  I asked her to explain and she said, "all the letters have two of them, like this kn says kn right next to it, like there are 2."  This just breaks my heart, no wonder she has not learned to read yet.

So I told her to just do her best and within one minute she is very slowly doing the pairs and she is shaking, her eye is turning red and tears are coming out of it.  But she didnt stop, she just kept reading the pairs of letters.  She was able to do 15 of them, and when the timer went off she pulled the patch off and burst into tears.  

I just held her and cried with her.  This is going to be so hard.  Keep us in your thoughts.

Vision Therapy

As most of you know, Alli has not had her "Ah-Ha" moment with reading.  While she LOVES being read to (for hours at a time!!!) she does not show a matched interest in learning to read.  A year ago we got her glasses for up close and it seemed to help, but still, my "mommy-gut-feeling" that something else was amiss, just would not go away.  

What I see as her teacher is a very bright girl who is floundering between what she KNOWS in her head and what she is able to DO on paper.  For example, she can tell me, verbally,  that 6 times 2 is 12, but that same problem on a piece of paper....
6 X 2 = 

and she will stare blankly at it unless I read it to her.  So, even though all the eye doctors said she can see fine now, I took her to a doctor who specializes in vision processing problems.  Guess what she found:


OCULAR MOTILITY (Eye Movement Skills): Below normal  
Poor eye movements may account for loss of place when reading. Eye movement skills are also necessary for copying from the board or book, and for searching for specific information on a page. Inefficient eye movements can make homework and other tasks take longer than they should.
  • The ability to track a moving target was moderately inaccurate and inefficient for her age and accompanied by frequent loss of fixation.  
ACCOMMODATIVE SKILLS (Focusing): Results below normal
Allison’s ability to focus clearly on near objects was below normal. Accommodative facility, the ability to make rapid and accurate changes in focus for different distances, was also below normal in the right eye and in the left eye. When tested with both eyes open, Allison could not use both eyes together, she suppressed an eye. Accuracy of focusing was decreased: When looking at a close object, Allison's focus lagged behind the object of interest.  when forced to increase her focus as evaluated in “accommodative skills” she is unable to use her eyes well together.

VISION DEVELOPMENT AND PERCEPTION: Mixed
Performance was mixed. Responses for questions in two categories (related to telling left and right on someone facing you) expected for 7 year-olds were incorrect. However, Allison correctly answered questions in a category for 11 year-olds.
  • Overall, Allison has strong visual perceptual skills (63rd percentile overall). She demonstrated particular strengths in visual discrimination (84th percentile), visual memory (63rd percentile), spatial relationships (91st percentile), sequential memory (95th percentile), figure ground (63rd percentile)
She was below average, but within one standard deviation in visual closure (37th percentile). 
  • Visual closure - fill in missing pieces of images with the mind’s eye.
 Form constancy was a relative weakness (2nd percentile)
  •  form constancy – recognize a figure when it changes size or is in a different position



This is just a summary of the most stand out items.  

HERE is a link to her entire testing report.

What it means for us is that Alli starts vision therapy on Thursday.  Once a week for probably 12 weeks solid, until we leave for summer vacation.  We have to do exercises at home daily.  It is possible that she is going to start having headaches and visual discomfort as she learns to use her eyes in a new way.  



As I type this Shane is outside playing a ball game with the girls. Apparently,  Alli has never been able to catch a ball because she cant keep it in focus as it moves towards her.   The visual skills Alli will develop during vision therapy, the ability to track a moving object with her eyes, focusing, and visual motor integration skills will also help her learn to catch a ball and feel more confident playing sports with her peers.   I am so excited to see how Alli's therapy changes her life.  My main concern was that she could not read, but now I am seeing that improving her visual skills can change her whole life.  When can we start!!! 







Spring Break - 2000 miles to Colorado


After driving all night from Chico to Great Basin, Nevada, we set up our tents at 1 am.  That is how our trip starts.  But, this is us we are talking about here....we never do anything the normal way.  We get up and drive the remaining 6 hours to Capital Reef, Utah. 



We love this campground.  The girls can ride their bikes around and there is a huge area for playing frisbee and the scenery is just incredible.   We hike up Fremont River Trail as the sun sets.



The next day we drive a crazy road to Upper Muley Canyon.  The canyons back here are supposed to be phenominal.  Our poor subaru, however, is not a 4 wheel road vehicle....this is probably the beginning of our suspension problems.....It is a beautiful place, though.



We end up climbing up this huge rock above Jill.  Sandstone is so wonderful.





Then, because ONE hike is not enough for these girls anymore, we also hike up COHAB CANYON before bed.   Jill wakes up SCREAMING at about 11pm....her first night terror.  Alli never had them, it is AWFUL.  Then, as quick as it started she is back to sleep.  I am wide awake for a LONG time.  I think maybe these girls need to get some more sleep and less hiking.  They dont agree.  The next day we go on two more hikes.

First, we stop at HOG SPRINGS on our drive to NATURAL BRIDGES.  The girls play in the spring for a little while, we have lunch and then we take a little 2 mile hike up the canyon.  That is Jill and I way up in the hole that wind has created in the sandstone wall.  She wanted to scale all the way up there so we did.  Getting down is always way scarier than going up, but she did great.  

Below is a picture of the girls off the road in  NATURAL BRIDGES NATIONAL MONUMENT.  It is beautiful here.  They have one of the darkest night skies in the World.  

We wanted to take the girls on a hike down to SIPAPU Natural Bridge.  We knew the girls would love it...there were ladders to climb and stairs to climb, they love obstacles on a hike.    At the trailhead there was a family getting into their car.  

The dad says to us, "Oh, you aren't going to hike this trail are you?"  We say, "Yes!"  He says, "Oh, it is way too treacherous for small children (he is looking at Jill and probably thinks she is 3!)  There are ladders to climb and very steep stairs.  Plus it is going to be getting dark soon."  We say, "Oh, wow, thank you!"  then we wait for them to drive away and go on our hike!!


One of the TREACHEROUS ladders

The beautiful SIPAPU Bridge from above.


A TREACHEROUS railing!!


The moon from underneath the bridge.  It was so beautiful, the girls did not want to leave.  But it was getting dark and even though we had our headlamps, we started the hike back up to the car.


Our trip was right in the middle of a cold snap....the next morning we woke up and it was 22 degrees out.  The girls NEVER complain of being cold though so that is fantastic.  Shane was awesome and went out into the crazy cold to make us breakfast.  First, he found our 7 gallon water container FROZEN SOLID.   After her got some not frozen water (from the visitor center I think) he washed the strawberries and they STUCK to the picnic table.  He had a crazy time trying to get oatmeal made!  But he is a great guy after all.  

We hung out in the tent until 10am and even then it had warmed up to only 30 degrees.  We drove to the visitor center to enjoy their heater for a bit.  

We wanted to hike a loop by leaving our car at one end and biking to the other end and the day wasnt getting any warmer so by 1:00 we drove to the hike.  It is now a steamy 32 degrees outside!!



These girls are up for anything though.  We park the car and get ready to ride to the start of the hike - maybe 1.5 miles....



Jill rides on the back of my bike


  but Alli has to ride her own bike. Shane says, I think it is all downhill from here....


There were 3 HUGE hills and Alli's bike does not have gears.  Shane got a lot of extra workout this day!!  The OWACHOMO Bridge was worth it...We parked our bikes here and then hiked back to our car.


The day never warmed up.  The hike was crazy windy and FREEZING!!!  We started the hike at 1:40 and got to our car at 5:30.  These girls are AMAZING.  

The low that night was going to be 13 degrees so even though we know the girls are awesome....we decided to rent a teeny little cabin outside of Mesa Verde National Park.    It is one little room with a double bed and a bunk bed AND a heater!!!

Wouldn't you know, it is 35 degrees out and instead of being in the cabin next to the heater (like Shane and I) they are on the mini golf course...playing some game called, "babies under the bridge"
(with their jackets OFF!!)



notice BEAUTIFUL Mesa Verde in the background....the FROZEN ice found in the BBQ and Alli's BARE FEET....what is wrong with these kids!!!

You would think that because we are staying in a nice warm cabin that we would have had a wonderful night of sleep and you would be INCREDIBLY wrong.  Our whole family sleeps so much better cold.  Jill spent most of the night keeping all of us awake.  She kept saying, "Mommy, is it morning yet?" - "Mommy, are you awake?" - "Mommy, I feel like my legs want to run around!!"  It was a long and HOT night, and it made the next day SO AWFUL for Jill.  She was crazy grouchy all day!!


I wish we had known this before we traveled all the way to MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, but....the cliff dwellings are not all open in the shoulder seasons....in the off season you can do a self tour of  some ruins along the rim loop that you can drive and also, you can self tour the Spruce Tree cliff dwellings.  This was really, really amazing to be able to see and walk through. Above is one of the kivas along the drive and below is the Spruce Tree cliff dwelling from the opposite ridge.



That night we did not use the heater and everyone slept MUCH better.   In the morning we knew we were going to head to Telluride, but beyond that we did not have a plan.  This ends up being a BIG mistake.  (Actually quite a few mistakes, and ultimately, the cause of major suspension damage to our car - $1700 to fix!)

Telluride is amazingly beautiful.  The best thing about it was that they have a FREE gondola.  We love anything that is free, so we tell the girls about it.  Jill begins to freak out that minute.  She does not want to go on it at all, she is TERRIFIED!!   Sweet sister Alli convinces her to at least try and moments later Jill is having the time of her life!!


Telluride was a great city, but there were no campgrounds so we planned to camp in OARAY, just a little drive into the Rockies. It was a beautiful city with the famous ice cliffs created for climbers.


We found a campground COMPLETELY covered in snow and decided to have dinner right off the road (very deserted road) and just camp there.  After eating and looking for a spot for the tent Shane just had a funny feeling about camping there and I ALWAYS go with gut feelings, so we packed up and drove on, even though we had no idea where we were going to end up.

This was the biggest bummer of the trip.  Not only did we have no idea where to camp, but we were driving through the AMAZING rocky mountains in the dark, so we could not even see them!  I dont know what was wrong with us, but we just kept driving all the way to NEW MEXICO.  UGH!!!  

One in the morning (after getting lost and taking a 30 minute detour) we pulled into Angel's Peak Scenic Area and in 60 mph gusts of wind we hunkered down - under some type of picnic shelter, with what sounded like 747 engines running all night long.  We had no idea what this place was, but it was 1am.   I can guarantee we were not allowed to camp here!!!   Jill had another night terror this night, BIG SURPRISE!!! We woke up and looked around.  The 747 sound going on all night turned out to be natural gas pumps. They were EVERYWHERE.  It was an UGLY, UGLY place!!


At 6am Alli wakes up and says, "I wanna hike to see those tufas!"


It was prettier that direction, but even down in this canyon were 15 natural gas pumps....



We drove all the way down to New Mexico to visit Chaco Canyon National Park.  Chaco Canyon is 20 miles out on a dirt road.  This dirt road makes the dirt road we drove out to THE RACETRACK in Death Valley seem peaceful.  This was the road that broke our car.  Shane would be driving 40mph on a pretty decent dirt section and then out of nowhere would come washboard that we should have been going 10mph on.  Our car was never the same after this road, but Chaco Canyon was unbelievable!!!

This culture build MASSIVE structures.  I cannot even comprehend the manpower it took to build their cities.  At one "city" they moved dirt enough to lift the land 15 feet.  They didnt have wheelbarrows, how did they do this!!!



After the fiascos of the last 24 hours -  car damage, driving through the Rockies in the pitch dark, sleeping where they pump natural gas, night terrors, WAY TOO MUCH TIME IN THE CAR....we head back to Colorado.  That is the first and last time we will be going to New Mexico!!

We plan to stay at an RV park in Durango...it is closed....we go back to the place with the cabins by Mesa Verde and just camp since the cold spell is broke and it is 80% cheaper!   I have been cooped up  in the car way too long and need to move around so I ride my bike up to the Mesa Verde Peak. 

I am a disaster emotionally.  The last 24 hours were NOT fun, I am majorly sleep deprived, I am worried about our car, I am worried about what is going to happen with Alli and if Vision Therapy is going to "fix" her.  I wonder if I am doing everything RIGHT in life......but then I get on my bike and start climbing 2000 feet.  

It is amazing how exercise, clean air, and peace and quiet just works like magic.  I forget about everything except getting over the next hill and around the next bend.  There are signs every half mile.  DO NOT STOP - ROCK SLIDE AREA!!!   

At the top (4 miles - takes me 50 minutes - yes, it was uphill the entire way - and yes again, I LOVE this!!)  I look out at the Rockies and wish I had seen them in the daytime, then I get over it...It is what it is, right?  Now, the reason why I love riding up mountains  -  All the way back down in 10 minutes!!  So exhilarating!

The next day we have a lazy day.  Shane rides Phil's World, a pretty awesome mountain bike trail.  The girls and I hang out at a park until Shane is done and then we drive back to CAPITAL REEF.  I am so sick of driving!!!



I had biked back on this road out of Capital Reef and I thought maybe Alli would enjoy to do some of it with me so Shane dropped us off at the top and we road down.  Then he would wait at the bottom to pick Alli up and take her to the next downhill.  She doesnt have gears, so the hills are just impossible for her.  She had a BLAST going downhill.

Then we made it to the canyons and Jill said she wanted to try.  The hills were much less steep and all downhill from this point so Shane drove behind us and we got to ride through the BREATHTAKING canyons.  I really think Utah is one of my favorite places.  The reds and the canyons, they are just amazing!


After we get to the end (about 3 miles of biking for the girls) we went on a 2 mile hike.    After our hike Shane mountain biked a gorge and the girls and I watched a couple rock climbing up one of the cliff faces.  After the couple was finished they were packing up next to us and I struck up a conversation with them about climbing.  It didnt take long to find out he was from Sandpoint, Idaho and then OF COURSE he knows my family from there.  He went to high school with my cousins, Scot, Mat and Wendy.  Small world!!

This was our last night.  Jill had another night terror, in the morning I tell Shane I am ready to get home.   I am ready to start the next chapter in our lives, trying to figure out why Alli still cant read.  From one adventure to another.....ON WE GO!!!!