Opto mize Ebook: Chapter 3 Development

Chapter 3: Development
ADHD, Autism Spectrum (ASD), Neurodivergent, Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) and more. Learn about the role vision plays in developmental conditions, and what can be done to help.
Keywords: Dyslexia, DCD, hand-eye coordination, autism, ADHD, vision therapy.
Website: www.opto-mization.com
"Samuel was born to a woman with drug and alcohol issues. Over his child- hood, he has been diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome, autism, ADHD, developmental coordination disorder, sensory processing disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, oppositional defiant disorder and a moderate intellec- tual disability. “He kind of has everything,” says his mom, Denise, who adopt- ed him at age one. (In an effort to protect their identities, the names in this chapter have been changed.)
Specialists had cautioned Denise not to expect much - that Samuel would likely miss many milestones. “All along, we were told he’ll never read, he’ll never be toilet-trained, he’ll never ride a bike,” she says. Denise admits they were struggling. Samuel had attempted the mainstream school system in kindergarten and grade one. But even home-schooling with a one-on-one educational assistant was getting to him. He was increasingly violent towards his mother, hitting her and even trying to push her down the stairs. She had to restrain him multiple times a day, sometimes for over an hour at a time, she recalls. “The fear was he may have to be institutionalized,” she says.
Denise didn’t want to give up on him quite so quickly, though. She had watched him get over hurdles that everyone had predicted he wouldn’t. She thought he might be able to get past this too. But she also had three other children with special needs to think about. All had been born to drug- or alcohol-addicted women and all were facing significant challenges.
At the point when Samuel was first recommended for vision therapy, around age nine, his mom didn’t think he was ready, behaviourally or
emotionally, to benefit from it. He couldn’t sit and focus on anything for that long - he couldn’t even go on a ten-minute walk with three aides, his mother recalls. So she put it off.
Meanwhile, her daughter, Sophia, who was just a bit younger and had also been recommended for vision therapy, was struggling in school. She had recently been diagnosed with both dyslexia and dysgraphia (a writing disability). It was an hour’s drive from their home to the therapy, and Denise decided that if they were going to make that commute, the two kids should do therapy at the same time. She waited for the moment to be right for both.
Luckily, that happened within a year. “It was like she can’t wait any longer and I think he can do it. So let’s try it.”
She wasn’t at all sure the therapy would help Samuel, but she decided to give it a go. And it did help. Samuel started the vision therapy program as a 10-year-old operating at a preschool reading level. After a year of therapy, he began to read for real. “He’s full-on reading now,” says Denise, who esti- mates he’s able to read at a grade 1 level. “It has been so significant for him.”
Perhaps even more importantly, he is also now able to do sports - and not just the bike-riding she was told he’d never master. He’s now doing intense, hours-long hikes and even playing tennis.
Here’s the message I most want to get across about developmental disorders and vision: just because there are other things going on doesn’t mean vision isn’t a part of the mix. Visual issues need to be investigated.
When I test a kid who has a developmental diagnosis, I try not to let the diagnosis distract me. What I need to find out is if there are visual issues. Because if there are and I can alleviate them, then at least I’m improving their visual function, and that’s going to help them out with everything else.
The part that kills me the most is that there are so many kids where obvi- ous visual issues get chalked up to something else. Too often people tend to assume a child is not reading or not writing or not playing sports because of their primary diagnosis - people say, “that’s just autism,” “that’s just devel- opmental coordination disorder,” “that’s just fetal alcohol syndrome.”

[@lisadean3929]

Wish I had known about this 30 years ago. It would have changed my life for the better. And my families' lives