Doing the Duck Walk

So, I met with Andraia's new eye doctor today for our parent consultation. They did lots of testing with her last week. The testing included: copying designs from one paper to another, circling backward letters, walking on a line on the floor, etc.

Today when I met with Dr. Price he showed me lots of info about how our eyes and brain work together to process what we are seeing. Andraia's eyes have a hard time focusing together on an object that is withing closer range. She also has problems tracking objects at the correct speed with both eyes working together. Poor girl. Dr. Price had me read a paragraph from a book while looking through a lens that would mimic what Andraia sees. I was so busy concentrating on reading the words, that I had no idea what I had read when I was done. And I just wanted to give up. It was so hard to focus on the page.

The issues she has with her eyes explain why her writing skills, reading skills, and even math skills are delayed. She can't process what she is seeing in order to learn from it.

Her vision training will work on helping her learn how to use the muscles in her eyes to focus and align her eyes properly. To do this, we will be starting with some large muscle exercises and work our way to the smaller muscles. Currently, we are doing duck walk, pigeon walk, army crawl, crab crawl and several other exercises that will help her learn to use large muscle groups. We will also be working with tracking bubbles and balloons to work on her larger eye muscles. And to help her use different parts of her brain at the appropriate times, we will be using magnetic letters to call out the name and color of the letter. Using both her right and left brain at the same time.

Chloe is very excited to play all of these new games with her Big Sissy.

I had tears in my eyes at several times during the office visit. I'M SO EXCITED to finally have something to focus on to help her!!!!!!!! YIPEE!!!! What a wonderful 'day before Thanksgiving'!

Our real therapy will start in January, so our insurance will cover at least a small part of the costs. She will be seeing Dr. Price 2 days a week for 3 months. Then one day a week for another 3 months. Then we will work with her for another 6 months at home with occasional check-ups in the office. I'm really looking forward to seeing what the next year brings!