Eye Contact/attention to faces

[Deleted]

I'm not super familiar with this. I was thinking maybe the glasses help train the eyes or keep the eyes from crossing and should still be used. But attending faces is also important, so could she take them off for specific times or moments of instruction? Or do a percentage of wearing them say 75 percent of the day wearing them 25 percent without. Perhaps the eye doctor can offer some suggestions. I think your thoughts on why it is happening and ways you can work with her all sound reasonable.

Just curious since DS has hearing issues would a cochlear implant or hearing aid help in the one ear? Maybe help balancing the turning of the head. I was assuming no since you didn't mention she had one, but I thought I would ask.

ETA- never mind on the cochlear implant. I was reading it would be for both ears not one only. 

[akafred]

I really don't know in that situation, but I am curious why you are against VT? I have/had amblyopia and it corrected mine without surgery when I was little. Obviously not to the degree of your daughter's and in no way am I implying that surgery wasn't the best choice at all, but could VT also help?

[theycallmemommy]

I just wanted to give our experience.

DS is 6.5 now but did vision therapy from age 4-5 twice a week 45 minutes for a full year. He has ASD and was pretty speech delayed at the time.

What happened with us is besides almost no language receptive or expressive, we had his eyes checked at the ot's request. There was a full year of watching his vision and using the miraflex glasses---best damn glasses on the planet if you have not seen them

Anyway, I was very impressed by his eye doctor because she said that if vision therapy worked for him it would be obvious in about 6-8 weeks. If not, it was just not going to work for him. Basically his eyes had trouble tracking together and focusing. It was not obvious to untrained people though. I just noticed he was scared of going up a step, playing on a swing, riding a scooter toy or anything that moved. But with no language and suspected autism, it was hard to know what caused what.

There are a ton of people who give vision therapy an eye roll apparently. I was told this was why a lot of insurance companies don't cover it. Mine being a really great teacher plan did, so we gave it a shot. I saw a huge improvement in his motor skills, verbal skills, and willingness to get on things more than a few inches off the ground.

But all of therapy decisions are so hard to make. I can understand the taking glasses off thing too. My son will have days once a month or so that he won't wear them but I think it might be a headache or something he can't quite explain. The eye doctor also said crossing of his eyes are fine without the glasses. It's a concern if it happens when they are on.

[theycallmemommy]

I also think that you are smart to look at the bigger picture. If she needs time without the glasses to work on attending to faces, then she needs that. I wouldn't let anyone get to you that thinks otherwise, at the end of the day, you are the mom and you are just as much of an expert on her as anyone else 😊

[theycallmemommy]

I also think that you are smart to look at the bigger picture. If she needs time without the glasses to work on attending to faces, then she needs that. I wouldn't let anyone get to you that thinks otherwise, at the end of the day, you are the mom and you are just as much of an expert on her as anyone else 😊

[Deleted]

Nov 28, 2016 10:34:34 GMT -5 @kitchen said:

Her current glasses are incredibly scratched and we're waiting on the new prescription anyway so we kept them off for most of this long weekend. I feel like she's a different child. She's been engaged and trying to communicate SO MUCH. What type of professional do I need to find to help figure out how to balance her vision needs with the rest of this? Or maybe I need to discuss with her ophthalmologist first to see if he has ideas?

I would ask the ophthalmologist. 

I wonder if this would be a team approach?  But I often don't find my pedi and specialists really working together that way.  They send reports to pedi and that is it.  So I end up having to ask them all separately and then piecing it together myself. 

I really only found the team approach when the rounding doctors came together as a team at the hospital.  Doctors rounded as a team and then a pain management team did rounds as well.