Another day of therapy, Dr. Metzgers office is getting ready to move to a new building, it will be a little closer to us, but not much!! I think Aaron enjoys the time he gets alone with mom and dad going back and forth. Here is what we did last week!!

Here he is using a pen light to put the reflection of the light and gets it to land on each stick, the farther back the stick, the farther back towards him the light has to be. Weird!!Here he is looking through glasses and drawing from one point in until the lines touch where he sees them.
Here is the end result in his glasses they touch! He finds the matching shape on both sides and then draws from one to another.This is hard for me to explain, he looks at a paper with alot of little symbols on it, the first one will be a circle on top and a triangle on the bottom and a line to the right of them. So he has to make one of his hands the circle and on the triangle and he has a line down the middle of his desk and he imitates what he sees on the paper. And he then says what is on top like circle. Then he keeps his hands the circle and the triangle but calls them something else like he calls the circle blue and the triangle red. I know it is very confusing, and maybe i can get a picture of what he is looking at on here to show you what i mean. It is for right and left training. I know i even have a hard time deciding right from the left!!

HE IS READING!!!!!!

He is reading!!!! He checked out a 530 page book from the library 3 days ago and he is almost half way through it!!! And he can tell me what he read!!!! I am sooooo amazed!!! This is AWESOME!!!! He will just go in his room and sit and read and he has NEVER done that before!!!! He is so excited that he is reading and enjoying it!! I hope this school year goes much better for him because of that!!!! Thank you vision therapy and Miss Jean for helping us to enjoy to read!!!!!!

This time we are making block patterns. They show him a block pattern and he looks at it and then they take it away and he has to build it. This was hard for him to do when we had him evaluated, he did not get very many right just by looking at them and picking the one that was supposed to look like what he just saw! He had a hard time at first on this but then he got them!!

This is hard for even me to do, he watches the board right in the middle is where he is concentrating and then they flash a number on there, it is only on there for a millisecond or something, i even missed seeing alot of them because i blinked or something!!! He has to tell her what the first and the last numbers on the screen were that he saw!! He got farther than anyone she has done this with she said!!

Here he is tapping on the arrows he sees with his fingers and says up, down, right or left. Then he changes it and calls the up arrows a color and same with the rest and has to say the colors, put his finger on the right arrows. The first one of these he did at home he had a circle and a square on it and he would get so good that he could call the circle green, the square red and when he saw a circle he would touch the square and say red and then the other way around and he got pretty fast!! I know sounds confusing and to me it was, i cannot see something, call it something else and then put my finger on the wrong thing!!!!!! He did great!!

Sorry, it has been a while since i have updated, here are some things we are doing at therapy!!

Here he is practicing lifting each of his fingers, this is on a slant, and at home we have been doing it on a flat surface. It is hard for him to lift certain fingers when asked. Try it!!
Here he is watching a line of lights that light up one at a time and he has to move his eyes back and forth to where the light is! It is kind of like his brock string that we were using. This helps his eyes able to focus up close and then far away!
We have been doing alot of these for homework lately. He is doing a timed test to find the letters of the alphabet in order through a written paragraph. They started out being only upppercase and are now lower and upper!! He does really well on these at therapy and at home!
Here are Aaron's fancy prism glasses, looks good doesn't he?? I tried to put these on and they are weird!! It depends on how you turn the lenses as to what you see." Sometimes you can only see the things around what you are looking at" says Aaron. And in the picture below he was trying to poke at things in front of him with a stick!!

OK Aarons dad took some pictures this time, I cannont get mine to load on the computer!! So here we go, these first ons is of his Brock String. He has to look for the X in the string, 2 lines coming in and 2 going out. Then he has to jump his eyes from one bead to the next and back.

The next picture his is playing a game of follow the arrows and when he hits the button the light lights up on that square. He always tries to go to fast and messes up, he has to try real hard to slow down and follow the right arrows!! The next he is using his peripheral vision and has been working on this alot lately!! He is concentrating on the letters on the paper in the middle of the board, and he has to try to keep the flashlights in his hands in between colors on the sides. It looks hard, but he has become really aware of his peripheral vision at home, because he will say, "Hey i just used my peripheral vision!" I don't think he even knew what was around him before, he would get so focused on what was in front of him!!!! We are having a blast!!!!

Hey ok it has been a little while, the computer had a bad virus and had to be totally revamped!!! Not fun!!
And i cannot get my pictures to load on the computer right now, so those will come later!! To report, we have finished out the school year and have made it to 6th grade!!!! Woo Hoo!!!! The school has agreeed to set him up on a 504 plan for next year so I am very relieved!!!!! We are gonna have to be working on alot of math facts for the summer, he didnt finish out the year very well in math.

But in another note, my child who never played baseball that well, played his first game of the season the other night. He kept asking me before he got up to bat if there were strikeouts???? He was very nervous!! Amazingly enough he SMACKED the ball each and every time he got up to bat!!!! And He caught a line drive!!!!!! He was truly amazed himself and has decided that it was the vision therapy that did this for him. You see, they also do sports therapy and they told us that he may get better at sports also!! AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! He has a new love for baseball now and is not afraid of it anymore!!!!! WOW!!!!!

New pictures today!!!!

This he is watching a green dot on the mirror with his eyes and moving his head back and forth and in circles and up and down! He wants to go really fast on everything he does and it is hard for him to slow down and do it right!

This is sooo funny, doesnt he look thrilled??? I have no idea what brought that face on, he was relly having a good time!!! But, this is the eye patch he wears, he cant see out of it, but WE can see what his eye is doing!!

He is reading with 2 different lenses. He reads a sentence and switches to the other lens. They are different strengths, he was having a hard time today!! Then we patch the other eye and he does the same thing! He read about hiccups today!!

He LOVES to do this! He is standing looking through some glasses and he has one pencil on a top left dot and one pencil on a bottom right dot and he draws lines from the dots to the center. He got a little sloppy today, he did better last week!

When he looks through the glasses it looks like the lines meet, but they really dont! This was his sloppy work today!!

Now he is sitting down to do it, this one looked alot better, you know MR. ADHD constantly moving when he is standing up, and that is what made the other one look messy!!!!

Playing new games tonight! He has to jump the marble up each number in the egg carton!!












He has to bounce the ball with each hand and then both hands and then pass it back and forth and read the letters on this chart at the same time!!
We had a great day at vision therapy!! Thanks Miss Jean!!!!

Got a check in the mail!!!! From Aetna!!!!! They paid half of each one of the the first two visits!!!! Woo Hoo!!! You should have seen me dance in the street!! Just sent the other ones off yesterday so i hope they keep paying!!!!!! Have some new pictures of the last session of therapy and will have those uploaded soon, just had to spread the GOOD news!!!! Praise God!!!!!!

What a treat!! Aarons dad took pictures of him doing his vision therapy with Miss Jean today!! So, here they are!!

Here he is using some lenses to read with, he reads some with the lenses and then he reads some without them. His other eye is patched so he cant see out of it and then we switch.

Here he is doing one of his primitive reflex excercises, this one is called Superman he says, and he told me it was frustrating!!! He has to lay on his belly and hold his arms up and put his thumbs together. Then he takes one arm around the side and behind him and he has to keep the other hand still. He said it was hard!!

OK, so he has to mark a spot on the chalkboard where his nose is at and he stares at that spot and with both hands at the same time he draws circles, sometimes both clockwise and sometimes both counterclockwise and sometimes opposite of each other. They should look like perfect circles and be seperated like his ones on the left. What happened Aaron??? Those were his bicycle circles haha Well i think we will keep practicing this one at home!!!!

Well this will be hard to explain. He has two dots on the chalkboard and he has two pencils in his hands. Same means he takes the pencil in his right hand and point to the right side dot with it and with his right foot forward, meanwhile keeping the other hand down by his side (Dad said he had a real hard time keeping his other hand down!!) . So then opposite of course is right hand, left foot pointing to right spot. And then crossover will be right hand, right foot to left spot. And so on and so on, i think i am confuseing myself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aaron showed me this tonight. He is holding his thumb up and shutting his eyes and following his thumb with his eyes closed and he has to open his eyes where his thumb ends up. I was watching him do this and it is hard for him to keep his eyes closed when he does this and it is hard for him to open his eyes where his thumb was going to be at. It is very interesting to watch all of this going on, and now you see why we have a room dedicated to vision therapy pretty much at home. Thanks to dad for the awesome pics.... good idea, I will start taking some also!! And thanks to Aaron and Miss Jean for letting us photograph you!!!!!

Oh and Dad just informed me that Dr. Metzger took him in to look at his eyes again today and he has made huge improvements from where he first started!!!! Yea!!!!! Way to go Aaron, and we are not even a fourth of the way through yet!!! I am very very very very impressed and SO glad we decided to do this!!!! Can't wait to see how far he will go!!!!!!

Well, Awesome week last week also!! My son actually read a whole chapter book by himself, and enjoyed it!!!! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!! He is making progress!!!! Miss Jean wore him out Thursday at therapy and he fell asleep early that night!! Yeah!! this weeks therapy consists of several battings of the ball hanging from the ceiling, including laying on his back and batting!! He is doing good making circles on the dry erase board, he has to make an x on the board the exact height of his nose and then stare at it to make the circles with his hands together. We start out making circles clockwise, counter clockwise and then opposite of each other out and in. They are supposed to be perfect circles, ten times around!! His are starting to look better!! It is hard though!! He loved throwing bean bags at the bounce back net with the prism glasses on, that is what wore him out, we are looking at getting one of those here. So far we have a room full of his vision therapy things, and i am glad that we have a room in the house we could use just for this!! We will see the psychiatrist again this week to see how meds are doing right now. I think they are ok so far!! I just hope that we will get to where we are not changing them all the time!! I think he would be much happier!! Well, gotta go track him down for some lens reading!! Have a great night!!!!

OK so last week was a little better homework wise, but still not up to par!! This week has been SOOOOO much better!! He is now batting his ball that hangs from our ceiling with a stick with different colored stickers on it! He has a hard time with this, because of course he is a boy and hitting a ball with a stick means you can only hit it one way..... Hard!!! Well he cant do that to get it to go where it is supposed to and he gets MAD!!! It is quite entertaining!!! We also had to put a dry erase board up and he draws racetracks and circles with it!! Of course his sisters want him to show them what he is doing and he refuses to show them, and then they are mad.. See the theme here??? By the time we are done, everyone has been mad at least once!! Hahahaha!! He is also practicing one of his reflexes by doing what they call Earth Hugging. He is also reading a book with a -2.50 lens. He is continuing to have ups and downs at school. He brought home another communication arts test and he did not do so well on this one. I asked if he had his glasses on when he took it and he said no. So, yesterday he took a math test and he got a B on it!! That is great considering he is currently flunking math!! We are continuing to see small improvements with him and are very pleased so far with therapy!!! I get to take him tomorrow for the hour drive over....hopefully it does not rain on us the whole way!!!! Have a great day everyone!!!!

Hey I am back!!

Well we have had some computer difficulties, now we are back up and running again!! So, week four was kind of hard, on top of vision therapy we see a pshychiatrist who is prescribing meds for aarons ADHD and anxiety and we havent found a good mix yet. She put him on zoloft and he was being very restless and impulsive and when we would try to do therapy he would hit the balls with all his strength, and he wasnt listening. He was in a lot of trouble at school also, for squirting ketchup on other childrens plates at lunch, and then he licked someone!! Lovely!!!! So we did not get much out of him that week! His grandpa took him to therapy last week and he thought it was really neat! His homework last week was better!! He had to bunt the ball this time and he is also doing the Randolph shuffle, and last week it was with eyes closed!! Hard for me to do, but he does well with it!! He is still doing the duck and pigeon with different variations. And he played with balls at the office so he talked his grandpa into buying him some and we have done that therapy at home also!! He is still making progress, his english tests have been good and so we put a brag about him in the brag box at Dr. Metzgers office!! I am so glad we are back online!! And i am so glad they took him off that med!!!! This week has been much better!!

So, the third week of vision therapy was a little harder, he also had a hard time getting his homework done. He had alot of homework from missing school and we were trying to get that done also, and some nights we ran out of time for everything!! For homework on week three he was to still do the eye control(following an object with his eyes), he still did the hart chart, (reading letters close up and then far away ), then with the ball he had to hit it back to us with his thumbs, and then he had to name a letter on the ball coming at him with his hands down and then we told him how to catch it the next time it came to him. He also had to play look soft, look hard and stare at something enough to make his peripheal vision go dark and then soften his look to make it come back. And this week he has to do the duck and pigeon walk again, this time with 2 sticks and he has to keep them horizontal and together but not touching. He still has a hard time with that!! And new this week he has to jump on a mini trampoline and there is a chart on the wall that has ducks, cats, and dogs on it. When he sees duck he says quack and his left foot is forward and his right foot is back. When he sees dog he says bark and his feet are together in the center. When he sees cat he says meow and his feet are out to both sides. He has to say one on every jump, no jumps or little bounces in the middle. This is hard, believe me, I tried it!!!! But, I cant jump on trampolines to much anymore, i have given birth to many times!!!!! LOL

Also, we have very good news to report, he has a communication arts class and this whole year has had a hard time passing tests, because one thing he has a hard time with is comprehension and there are alot of comprehension questions on these tests. Well he has made a pretty low grade on them up til now!! This last test he got an AAAAAAAAAAAAAA Yea!!!!!!!!!! And he got all the comprehension questions right!!!! So, he is already showing improvements!!!! I am very proud of him and he is VERY proud of that A!!!!!!

Oh yes and I forgot to mention, we had a full eye exam and he is now wearing reading glasses, he thinks it helps alot!! We just went to Walmart and got several pair. He must like them, he does wear them!!

OK, so week two of homework, a little harder! He still has the ball and on the ball are letters. So our first excercise with the ball is to punch it back to me alternating hands and then he has to put his hands down at his side and name a letter on the ball coming at him and then catch it with palms, fists or fingertips again when it comes the second time, all the while standing on a balance board!! He really likes this one! We still have the eye tracking only now we are tracking in. We have a new wall chart with 10 letters across this time and he has to read the first 5 off the wall and the next five from his hand, one eye patched and stepping back each time!! He does a good job at this also! He has more rhythm exercises this time, he has to march to the beat and to every other beat, and he has to march front, back and sideways, this is hard let me tell you!! I have a hard time doing it!!!! haha Now instead of the starfish we are walking like a duck and a pigeon holding onto a stick to turn his hands the right way and going front and back. He really struggles with this one!! But, we are on the third day of homework and better go and get started!!! Have a great day!!!

OK, so the first week of Therapy was not that bad, we had to hang a ball from the ceiling, we hung it through a cup hook so we can move the ball up and down to get it out of the way. He is supposed to cross his midline to hit the ball and then catch it with his palms, fingertips or fists, whichever we say on our release. He has to do eye tracking excercises, and he has a wall chart with letters and in his hand he holds a small chart with letters, he is to wear an eye patch and read one line on the wall and one line in his hand. He scoots back a big step everytime he reads one on the wall. He is also to do some rhythm excercises. He claps to the beat and then every other beat. He has no problem with that one. We also do some moro reflex excercises, right now he is being a starfish. This is very interesting and I am doing it on all three younger children also. They wanted to, so what the heck!! The first week of homework went well. We had to call and see if they would move his appointment up for him on Thursday, it was his school Valentines party and this is the last party he will have for his Elementary years are almost over!!!! They agreed to and we were back in time for the big bash!!!

OK so i made the dreaded phone call to set up the first vision therapy appt. today. We start on Thrursday, he is excited, they told him he would have to wear glasses for a while to read and do close work. I am sure the newness will wear off eventually and he will hate it, but for now we are excited!! Dr. M also told him to get a 3 ring binder 2", and put furniture bumpers across the bottom of it and use it when he is sitting at his desk and doing homework to put his work at a slant. He used to put one knee in his chair and lean up over his desk to read, this helps alot!! He is currently still taking some adhd meds and meds for temper, we havent seen much of a temper change, and his fears have gotten way out of the normal box! He is scared of everything... he was home sick the other day and his dad stayed home with him, his dad went in to take a shower and he freaked out!! I walked out to my car yesterday and he wanted to know where i was going and how long i was gonna be out there!!! Man, i think he will be one of those people who locks themselves in their house and will not come out!!!!

Ok, so everyone keeps telling me that I need to start a blog. The things my children say and do are priceless and crazy sometimes and I would love to keep record of it for reasons to be mentioned when they reach childbearing years...hahahaha!!!! Like my mother always told me "I hope you have children just like YOU!!!!" Well, whatever she did worked, some kind of curse, I dont know, but it definetly worked!! I currently have a 13 year old ( man that cannot be, I am not old enough for that) girl that is a very bright and confident young girl, she is a straight A student that does not make A's, she would rather socialize then make the grades i guess!! I have a very wild and creative 11 year old boy who sometimes tests my patience!! And, a very independent and strong willed beautiful 10 year old girl, who will not let anyone tell her she cannot do something!! And my baby who is 8 now, very much a mamas girl and always has been, she is very smart and pretty!! We own a farm, a u-pick pumpkin patch, and have currently 19 cats, 1 dog and 2 fish!! I am a Parent Educator and love my job, and my husband is a Fire Captain.
I have really decided to start blogging because we are about to start on a huge adventure with my 11 year old son. He was diagnosed ADHD about 6 years ago in kindergarten, he could not sit still to save his life and i think his main goal in life was to be a siren when he got older, because that is all he did was run around the house nonstop making siren noises!!!!Anyways, after he was diagnosed we were not really wanting to medicate him, the Doctors had told us that he was a very classic case of ADHD and we could try diet and other options, but that we would probably be back in the office sooner or later. We reluctently put him on meds and were amazed at the difference it made in him, he was actually sitting on the floor playing board games!! Never have we seen him do that before. He still struggled with schoolwork off and on, when he began reading i told his teacher i was concerned that he kept switching whole words around in the sentences, she told me not to be concerned he was doing just fine. In about the second grade when he started adding 2 and 3 digit numbers again i was conerned because he would turn whole numbers around and add them backwards, again i was told not to worry about it, he was doing fine. Well, we had a really rough 3rd and 4th grade years and this year is not proving to be much better!! So, setting in a conference with all his teachers, counselor, principle and the head of specia ed, and the head of special ed asked if we had ever heard of Vision Therapy?? No, this was the first i had heard of it and th schools OT and the teacher and I filled out questionairs about this on him. He tested very high referred so we set up an evaluation with a Developmental Optomitrist. It took 90 minutes and it was a interesting eval. they did lots of things with him including looking at his primitive reflexes. Primitive Reflexes are reflexes everyone is born with to help us survive our first years, and then they go away because we dont need them anymore, well we found out that day that he still had 4 of the 5 of these still present!! We also found out that he has what is called convergence insuffiency. This is where he has to work so hard at getting his eyes to work together to do school work and read that he tires quickly, and his comprehension goes way down. But, this may have been his problem all along, alot of kids are apparently mislabeled ADHD and this therapy will help him. We had to discuss this and think long and hard about our decision because the therapy will be 1 hour a week for forty weeks at $130 a week and insurance does not cover it!! We do not have that kind of money, but decided how can we deny a child their eyesight, that is his life!! And the therapy place is an hour away, that means he will miss about 3 hours of school each week!! And that is alot of gas money and alot of extra time put in by us!! It was a hard decision, but i will be making that phone call tomorrow to set up the first therapy appt. God will help us through all of our concerns and it will be ok i have no doubt!! I think that I have been called to this and to blog about it for other families that may be going throught the same things!! I think that if it helps just one child, it is worth it!! Thanks for following!!!! And let the story begin..................