Thing is that specific reading disability is not a visual skills issue; it is a neurocognitive issue. You may as well also treat a child who has a hard time learning math with vision therapy as see numbers too, so poor math skills must also be a visual skills issue. The actual evidence is that this is deep woo.
Of course some 8 year olds who are having a hard time reading are just late bloomers. Do vision therapy and a year later they are readers; do nothing other than regular classes and they are readers a year later too; swing a rubber chicken and have the same effect.
Of course some respond to basic reading remediation and will whether you do some deep woo with them at the same time or not.
Of course if someone is short-sighted they need that corrected to learn to read.
Yes, a child with true convergence insufficiency may fatigue with prolonged reading and will benefit from vision therapy. But it will help prevent fatigue associated with prolonged reading, not a primary difficulty in learning to read.
And some kids have a true specific reading disability and true specific reading disabilities need early intervention with programming to address the core neurocognitive (not visuomotor) issues.
Anyone considering spending more money than they can reasonably afford on “therapy” should minimally be aware that they are likely being scammed and that the medical organizations that have evaluated it (and I do not include optometrists as medical) all have concluded that it is without scientific merit. Heartfelt testimonials from those whose children’s reading improved while doing the therapy notwithstanding.
Define “published in the field.” Because I’m not seeing it from the meet the doctor page on the website. I just see a couple of books, but nothing peer-reviewed.
Oh. This bit deserves some comment regarding its place in the possible diagnosis of specific reading disability (aka “dyslexia”)
By definition kids with dyslexia are or overall average intelligence or higher but have difficulty learning to read despite adequate opportunity to do so. Most commonly it is thought to be a consequence of difficulty coding and decoding phonemes; kids with dyslexia instead try to rely on memorizing complete word shapes and making guesses by context and pictures on pages. It is hard to fit that label just going into 2nd grade as the range of normal variation is so wide as to still encompass some who just emerge with the skills over the next half year and then blossom. Some brighter dyslexics can “pass” for a few years - they memorize enough complete word shapes and can deduce fro the pictures on the page and the context enough to make guesses at enough of the others, that no one knows that they are not decoding at all. Harry Anderson, of Night Court fame, was once interviewed about his dyslexia. An army brat he covered it up into adulthood scamming teachers doing the same book report over and over again that was based off of the movie of it he had seen. He got into magic because the books all had diagrams. He only admitted it as an adult when his wife called him out on the fact that he always memorized his scripts by having others read it out to him.
But some things would make one more suspicious than others. For example if this twin had a hard time predicting rhymes compared to his brother and other children his age earlier on, that would raise the index of suspicion. Also I’d look to see if this brother has a harder time telling his right from his left and/or tying his shoes than his twin and others his age - difficulties with directionality in general go along with it. And what you just described also makes one concerned - he quickly recognizes the whole words and patterns he could memorize, but he is struggling with decoding unfamiliar ones. I’d also be curious about family history - often adults who were dyslexic won’t say that, but they will admit to being absolutely awful spellers even as adults.
His godfather may be a great resource and will likely focus and explicitly teaching him the rules of phonics that many other kids can just pick up without effort. Often multisensory modalities are used. If he is just a lit late to take off then this extra attention may speed up the process before he gets too frustrated; if he actually has a reading disability then the earlier intervention begins the better.
That is a distinction without a difference. Visual skills are neurocognitive, and they undoubtedly overlap fairly extensively with with that subset of neurocognitive skills that are important for reading.
Did you actually read that abstract you linked to?
Or are you under the impression that eye movement control has nothing to do with visual attention? :rolleyes:
His twin is fraternal (rather than identical) and appears in nearly all metrics to be a completly different person in likes, abilities, and tale3nts. But the things you are saying ring true to me. The impression I got when he’d bring home additional reading material was that he was remembering what he’d read earlier, not actually reading the material. This looks like a good starting point to tackle.
Njtt I’d caution against derailing the conversation on semantics. The question here is how genuine and fact-based the boy’s Optomitrist is. There are three components to vision, sure. But what HASN’T been demonstrated is: Is Visual therapy, as it’s been presented here, doing anything differently than other literacy training that’s well established (other than, you know, charging out the wazoo for it).
First of all, you do not get to caution me on anything.
Secondly, I find it highly offensive to be accused of “derailing the conversation on semantics.” Where the hell am I “derailing” anything? Both my posts are directly concerned with the likely value of treatment regimens of the sort you are concerned with. The only remotely “semantic” point I made was in defending myself against DSeid’s arrogant and conceptually confused dismissal of the substantive scientific point I made earlier. I thought you, and others, might have some interest in the science of the matter and the general theoretical basis for thinking treatments of this general sort might actually be of some value. Maybe it went over your head. Sorry for trying to be helpful.
Also, I have no idea what “three components to vision” has to do with anything. I did not say anything like that. I don’t even know what it means.
1 What the eyes can see
2 What the eyes do together
3 How the brain interprets the information presented from 1 and 2.
Stated that way, the dividing line between what’s neurocognitive and what isn’t, is irrelevant. All three parts are necessary, and a shortfall in any of them leads to literacy issues.
This thread is dealing with my son and wether or not he’s receiving a case of snake oil. Both you and DSeid appear to be in agreement in that. I suggest that you separate what is being said, with the idea that disagreement=personal attack. You’re both on the same page, it’s the punctuation you’re disagreeing on.
I don’t know where you get that from, but I do not think it is a scientifically useful way of conceiving of vision. Indeed, it is positively misleading. What the eyes do, and what they can see, is inextricably intertwined with the visual functions of the brain that controls them.
I agree, it is irrelevant. But it was DSeid who brought up the issue of what counts as neurocognitive, on the grounds that only what is neurocognitive is relevant to reading ability, and that the processes I was talking about (eye movement control) are not neurocognitive. I say he is wrong on both counts. Eye movement control is neurocognitive and it is relevant to reading development.
DSeid and I are pretty clearly not in agreement. He(?) appears to be completely convinced that it is snake oil. I think there is a chance that it might not be.
It is you who have made this personal, mate. I was, at worst, very mildly snarky in the way I pointed out the fallacy underlying DSeid’s dismissal of my original point. You, on the other hand, outright accused me, quite baselessly, of derailing the thread.
I guess it is derailed now, but that is your doing.
