Vision Therapy for Autistic Kids
December 11, 2006 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
One of Charlie’s eyes does not converge—that is, when an object is placed a few inches from his eyes, the one eye does not move inward and “track” it. He used to wear prism lenses all the time when he was 5-7 years old; he now wears these primarily when riding his bike. He also sees an optometrist who specializes in seeing special needs children and does vision therapy, which an article in today’s MetroWest Daily News describes as
eye exercises that use balls, wheels, pictures and text while incorporating movement, balance, speech and hearing.
The goal of vision therapy is to treat convergence conditions such as lazy eye, an inward- or outward-turned eye and tracking problems. The exercises can also help children with ADHD, autism, learning disabilities and dyslexia. [Vision therapist John Abbondanza] added that convergence issues affect approximately 5 percent of the general population.
Abbondanza is a board-certified behavioral optometrist. Michael X. Repka, M.D., a professor of opthalmology and pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University, notes that “‘Vision therapy is used for many things, and some of them are more avant garde and out there.’” Vision therapy has been written about in a few peer-reviewed scientific and medical journals, such as Strabismus and Journal of Learning Disabilities.
We have just started to try having Charlie wear his glasses when he is working at his reading programs—we will “see” if this makes a difference for him.
For Brendan, vision therapy was nothing short of a miracle. It was very hard work, but he went from lacking binocular convergence entirely to within normal ranges for convergence & tracking within 1 1/2 years. It was intense & often difficult work for him & required follow-up at home with exercises & balance-boards. Neither our insurance nor our school district would help pay for it, but the whole experience was really worth it in terms of enhancing Brendan’s life. He went from being unable to read at all in 1st grade (he couldn’t track left-to-right to follow a page of writing) to reading at a 7th grade level in 4th. Unfortunately, a regular opthamologic examination did not reveal the convergence problem- it was an OT who discovered the problem & referred us to a therapist. When friends enquired of their eye doctor about the value of therapy for their son (with similar visual issues to Brendan’s), they were told it had no value. The prevailing attitude that this sort of therapy is “out there” is a shame, since it’s discouraging those who might really be helped by it, plus putting it financially out of the reach of many, since it’s not considered in the main stream for insurance coverage.
One thing I did not understand about vision until Brendan came along is that observing one’s environment is a learned behaviour, & because his visual difficulties weren’t discovered until he was 5 he did not learn to navigate by looking at things. This means that, although his vision is now “normal”, he still has to be reminded to look at things like faces (for recognition of other people), shoelaces, zippers, clocks… not being in the habit of picking up on visual cues gives him a lot of unnecessary frustration, & really speaks to the value of early intervention.
This is very helpful, Lisa! Charlie too has vision problems that are “outside” the usual issues of being near- or far- sighted (he apparently is somewhat far-sighted). It’s never been an easy thing to address due to his language issues—certainly good to hear about Brendan’s experiences.
I wear prism lenses. Never did any exercises though.
They make staying on balance beam and staying in bounds on floor routines much easier. And that whole not running smack into the vault thing. But ugh the headache if theyre crooked. I am also quite near sighted.