Vision Therapy: 36 Week Update

Vision Therapy Results

Well, here we are.   Finally at the end of 36 weeks of Vision Therapy.  His therapy pretty much spanned the school year and it seems fitting to be finishing up at the same time as summer just is taking off. We are very happy with his vision therapy results.

I’ll be honest, I’m feeling a bit emotional as I write this.   These last seven years (starting at age 2) have been a journey with our middle son.  Between therapy in the home, therapy in Early Childhood, therapy at the clinic, Brain Balance, integrative doctors, functional medicine doctors, and lots of diet/supplement interventions along the way, we’ve been through a lot.

We’ve not “arrived” by any means, and I’m not sure that we ever will fully.

BUT, I would say that vision therapy was one of our son’s “magic bullets” in unlocking his potential.  He has made huge strides this past year, largely due to Vision Therapy.   So right now, I just sit here, thankful.

It is difficult to accept your child’s delays, but also necessary, so you can love and enjoy them as they are.  And have peace.   However, I do not think we should just stay stuck in this thinking if there is something out there that can help them.

The difficulty is striking the balance between loving them for who they are AND continuing to seek out things that can help them.  This is a balance I have often failed at and other times managed to strike quite well.

For us, homeschooling has been a huge ingredient in our child’s confidence and success.

It has allowed us to customize our son’s education to cater to his passions and strengths while gently working on his weaknesses.   I am grateful to be able to do so.

Ok, had to get that sappy stuff out of the way.   As much as I want this blog to help others, it’s also healing for me to write.  Dual purpose.  Win-win.  Two birds one stone.  🙂

This blog post contains affiliate links and any purchases made through these links will result in a small commission for me (at no cost to you!) 
Here are the gains we’ve seen from Vision Therapy

(many of these were mentioned in the 12 week update I did too):

Ball play is easier

Not as easily fatigued

Considerably fewer headaches

Handwriting improved

Spelling improved (And I should note – I don’t do spelling as a subject!)

Hiking is easier.   He described this as “less stumbling”.   When we went to Yellowstone in the fall, he had to stay near me or hold my hand to feel safe on the paths.  He would often lose his footing or feel unsure on the trails.  This is not an issue now. Just two weeks ago we did a rigorous hike (picture below was taken mid-hike) and this kid was at the head of the pack, trekking with confidence!

Focus while reading much improved.  His words were, “It’s easier to concentrate while reading.”

I love objective results, so I was thrilled to find out he went from reading AND comprehending 128 words per minute for his grade level, to reading and comprehending 208 words per minute for his grade level.  This was a huge jump!

Obviously, we are elated with his progress.    We will still be doing a couple of exercises each day, but in total it should only be about 5 minutes a day.  I’m okay with that!  Especially since he does most of them without my help.

He continues to use this slant board which makes schoolwork, especially writing, easier.


If you want more info about vision therapy, check out this post I did for his 12 week update.

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Vision Therapy: 12 Week Update

This blog post contains affiliate links and any purchases made through such links will result in a small commission for me (at no extra cost to you).
Dyspraxia or Vision Issues?

We took the plunge and began Vision Therapy for Joe, our 8-year-old, in the fall.  It had been recommended by both a neuropsychologist who did an extensive evaluation on him and it was also recommended by his occupational therapist.   He has had difficulty catching and kicking a ball for his whole life (and other activities that require coordination).  These difficulties certainly go hand in hand with his dyspraxia.  But we have often wondered, how much of his dyspraxia is related to his vision?

We held off for a while due to the likelihood of insurance not covering it (that proved to be TRUE, though the evaluations are covered).  We spent big bucks on Brain Balance when Joe was four, and it’s honestly just hard to continue to pay for things that are not covered by insurance.   Though when they truly help, it IS worth it!

Exam Results

Following his very first evaluation done by The Vision Therapy Center, it was determined he has Convergence Insufficiency, a very common diagnosis.   They gave us a script to get glasses with a prism and made from a special material.  These glasses almost immediately helped with his ability to catch a ball – pretty amazing to witness!

After that initial first exam and one other exam they did, they gave us the results.  Joe had deficiencies in his visual processing related to FOCUSING, TEAMING, and TRACKING.   He also has some retained primitive reflexes, which they work to integrate as part of his therapy plan.

We do about 20 minutes of exercises at home 5  days a week and go the center for therapy once a week.  He will finish in summer after 36 weeks of therapy.

Improvements We’ve Seen

We are happy with the results so far.  These are some of the positive things we’ve seen, along with the improved ball catching:

Reading faster  (Joe was already reading well, he is just able to read faster now!)

Fewer headaches

Interest in puzzles (in the past he was not interested in doing them)

Slightly better short-term memory – we notice this in his ability to complete tasks.

Improved handwriting.  There was lots of room for improvement here, as academically, this is Joe’s weakest area.  However, the improvement is noticeable which is quite exciting for us, and more importantly, for Joe!  See the captions for the dates of when these handwriting samples were taken.  The biggest improvement is his ability to write smaller, which is seen especially on the last sample from today (though you may not be able to tell from the picture!)

Vision Therapy
9-26-18
Vision Therapy
11-26-18
Vision Therapy
1-4-19

 

Handwriting Aids

We have also started using this slant board per the advice of the optometrists at the center, to reduce fatigue when handwriting.

And while we’re talking about handwriting, these pencil grips are amazing.  Joe just got them for Christmas and tried them out and whoa!  So comfortable and easy to use. I have a poor pencil grip myself and these felt very natural to use.

ETA: Here is a post with results after 36 weeks of vision therapy were completed.

If you’re curious or want to know more about vision therapy, in general, I highly recommend the group on Facebook “Vision Therapy Parents Unite”.  Or if you just want to learn more about Vision Therapy you can check out this website.

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“Hey Mom?”: Musings from an introverted mom of a chatterbox

Recently I was driving my 8-year-old son to his vision therapy appointment.

Being that the therapy center is 35 minutes from our house, I usually make use of that car time by playing an audiobook.

It was just him and me in the car that day, and so I asked him, “What book do you want to listen to?”.  He responded with, “Can we just talk?”

I SIGHED QUIETLY to myself. 

“Sure, honey”.  I knew well what “talking” meant – bring on the questions!  The rest of the car ride was a Q&A session.  Normally me giving the answer, “Hmmm… I don’t know…”,  OR “We’ll have to get some books to look that up.”  I am now on the hunt for good books about the Titanic, because that is where this conversation Q&A marathon went….

I’m convinced my son’s brain is directly connected to his mouth…

And I’m thankful for how verbal he is.  See, he did not start to really talk until around the age of 3 1/2, and we were pretty concerned, so truly I am thankful that he talks… even if it overwhelms me at times.

Since I’m introverted and am recharged by time alone and in QUIET, his endless questions can feel like an ASSAULT to my (already suffering) “mom brain”.  And don’t get me wrong, I love this kid to PIECES!  He is one of a kind! But it doesn’t change the fact that the non-stop chatter feels like OVERLOAD.

Every time I hear “Hey Mom?”, my neck gets tense and I take a deep breath. Usually once “Hey Mom?” starts, it continues to a string of questioning for the next “X” amount of minutes.

His questions are a combination of genuine curiosity about the world around him (he’s my nature-smart kid) AND the fact that his brain is not totally organized (related to visual processing and auditory processing issues which we’re working on in occupational and vision therapy).  He processes almost EVERYTHING verbally.

When asked to “be patient” and hold his questions until I am done talking to someone else, he has a difficult time.  He is afraid he will forget his thought… and the fact of the matter is – he will!  So naturally, I give this kiddo some grace, even though I’m sure onlookers don’t always understand.

Tips For Other Moms of Chatterboxes

I don’t have it all figured out but here are some strategies that help me with my incessant talker:

  • When busy or just not in a position to be on the receiving end of a barrage of questions, give your kiddo an ear for a few minutes.  But let them know you will need to move on (to whatever you need to do) in a certain amount of time.
  • If the “Hey Mom?” is in regards to them wanting to SHOW you something they’ve made or they need you to DO something for them, and you’re currently in the middle of something, it’s ok to have them wait.
  •  If it’s information they seek, do whatever you can to get them reading!  Once he learned to read (at age 7), our son’s non-stop talking did ease up.  It got much better because he was no longer relying on me only for information intake(whether that was through conversation OR me reading to him).
  •  To help them learn how to work on their communication skills, try the communication game, which I described in this post under ‘Bravewriter’.  This game challenges them to use their words EFFECTIVELY.  They have to be selective and choosy about the words they use in order to do well in this game.

And now signing off as I enjoy some quiet moments by the fire… AKA “Brain re-charge” time. 🙂

 

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Weekly Wrap-Up: October 1-5

Activities for kids with sensory issues

Disclaimer: In the name of full transparency, please be aware that this blog post contains affiliate links and any purchases made through such links will result in a small commission for me (at no extra cost to you).

Weekly Wrap-Up: October 1-5

I thought it would be neat to have a weekly post, that included highlights  (and possibly lowlights too…) from our week.  So, here goes!

Rocky Start

This past week had a rocky start with Daniel getting a stomach bug and missing preschool on Monday.  Since Daniel is high maintenance for me, I rely on his school days to get a lot done with the older two.  We still got a fair amount done but not as much as usual.   It may have been for the best as it definitely forced me to slow things down which was good after a weekend of camping.

Overcoming Fears

We still managed to get swimming lessons in on Monday (thanks to my parents coming over to watch Daniel).   Lydia is getting braver each week and wanted to try jumping into the 10 feet deep area.  This was HUGE for our girl.  She was a sight to behold… goggles, nose plug, earplugs and all.  God bless her swim instructor!  🙂

Read Alouds

Reading Aloud is one of the pillars of our Home School.  Unfortunately, sometimes appointments and schedules get in the way of having the time to do this.  Tuesday brought Joe’s 2nd Vision Therapy Evaluation and a lot of time in the car.  We redeemed that car time by starting the Mysterious Benedict Society on audiobook, which is our Read Aloud Revival book club book for October.  MBS is an entertaining book about “Outside the Box” kids on a mission.

Also, just yesterday, we finished “On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness”  by Andrew Peterson.  This was a delightful novel full of action, heart, and hilarious characters with a Chronicles of Narnia/Lord of the Rings feel to it.  This is Peterson’s first novel and it is part 1 of 4 books in the Wingfeather Saga.  Andrew Peterson is an amazing musical artist AND author.  He is a true “creative” (yes, I just made it a noun!) and he reminds me of my own creative child.  We will certainly be reading his other books!

Math Facts Break Through

For math facts, we use Math-It, which I really love.  It’s simple and effective AND my kids aren’t breaking out in tears when practicing their facts.   Joe finally broke 1 minute on his addition math facts this week.  He’s been working on them since February so this was extremely exciting!    We tweaked how he does his facts due to some fine-motor limitations he was running into because of his Dyspraxia.  With that adjustment, I have a feeling he’ll be getting his multiplication facts down before the end of the month.  It is so awesome to see him soar!

Bath Bombs

I’ve been promising the kids for a while that we could make bath bombs.  Every time we see them at a store, they want to buy them and they are PRICEY!  We used a recipe from The Superkids Activity Guide to make bath bombs.  As a side note – Lydia LOVES this book ( I do too, but Lydia has spent hours paging through it).  It’s colorful, well laid out and packed with outside the box  AND useful ideas for kids with various sensory challenges.

The bath bombs are meant to encourage kids who normally hate being bathed to take baths.  Thankfully my kids are all past this (though it wasn’t too long ago we were dealing with this issue!) and we just made them for the fun of it.   We used cupcake shaped molds, which I’ve had for many years, but you could use any type of mold or shape them with your hands. The bath bombs just popped right out of the molds.  The secret ingredient to making them fizzy: Citric Acid, which I learned is found in the canning section at the grocery store.

Activities for kids with sensory issues
Our bath bombs drying in the cupcake molds

And that’s our Weekly Wrap-Up!

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Brain Balance: A Parent’s Perspective

Unbiased Review of Brain Balance

What I hope to accomplish here is give an unbiased review of Brain Balance.  I know all too well the energy spent trying to do what is best for your child. I have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours researching things to help my children, especially my middle child, who completed the Brain Balance program in 2015. Back in 2014 when we were considering the program and saw the price tag, we did our due diligence to look into the program. It was not cheap (around $10,000) and not covered by insurance.

This post contains affiliate links through the Amazon Associates program and any purchases made through such links will help defer the costs of maintaining this website (at no extra cost to you).  This is absolutely separate from the Brain Balance franchise.

Homeschool Made Simple

Is Brain Balance a Scam?

It was frustrating to find that most people labeled Brain Balance a “scam”. Those comments did not come from other parents whose children completed the program. I wanted to hear from parents… Did they see an improvement in their child with the program? Did they think it was worth the hefty price tag? Was Brain Balance the “golden ticket” to helping their child?

Hard to find Unbiased Reviews

The few reviews I discovered from other parents revealed that most saw improvement, though some not as much as they would have liked. What I have done in this post is given an objective review of Brain Balance by laying out the benefits and drawbacks to the Brain Balance program in an unbiased fashion, as well as offer some other tips.  If you are a parent or care-taker looking into the Brain Balance program for your child, I hope you find this helpful.

Some Background

My son (now 8), was diagnosed with developmental, speech and gross motor delays around the age of 2.  We did see signs of delays before that, but my daughter (now age 10) was also a late walker and talker (she had an explosion of both at 18 months) and we thought that might be the norm for our children. My son didn’t crawl until 11 months, walked at 16 months, and didn’t really talk until age 3-3 ½. He had and has motor planning difficulties.  Now we have an official diagnosis from a neuropsychologist of Dyspraxia, which is a brain-based condition that affects one’s ability to coordinate and plan motor tasks. (we got this diagnosis a year ago when he was 7).

We heard about Brain Balance shortly after his 4th birthday.

Much of what we heard was new to us. We had never heard of primitive reflexes. Learning how retained primitive reflexes can be the source of blockades to normal everyday functioning and cause your brain to stay in a “baby brain” type state was fascinating to us. We had heard about Brain Balance through a homeschool convention and the evaluation was actually free for anyone who had attended the convention. Due to that, we decided we had nothing to lose by doing the initial evaluation.

Homeschooling with Dyslexia

Following the evaluation, we learned that our son had retained 5 of the 8 primitive reflexes that Brain Balances tests for. This blew us away but also gave us hope. There was a reason things were harder for him. After doing our research, we decided to bite the bullet and immerse ourselves in the program. We emptied our HSA and college savings for the kids and made it happen. Our thought was there would not even be college in our son’s future if we didn’t remove these hurdles first.

The Nuts and Bolts of the Brain Balance Program

Our son was recommended to complete 6 months of the program(or 72 sessions). He went every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and completed one hour sessions with his “coach”. We were recommended to adhere to a Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Soy-Free, processed sugar-free diet. We did do this and were strict about it for those 6 months.

Some supplements were recommended. The main one I remember is probiotic.

As part of the program we did his exercises at home on the days he did not have a session with his coach.

Do I recommend the program to parents considering it?

That depends on your situation.

If you have an older child who you’ve already tried a lot of interventions with, this may be a good option for you.

If money is not a problem, I would say sure, do it. You will able to accomplish a lot in a short order of time. It isn’t a magical pill though. Know that the exercises at home do take time. And the diet changes take work and preparation, not to mention an increased grocery bill and possible resistance from your child. Also, if you have a younger child, motivation could be an issue. This was one of our biggest hurdles. Getting our son to do the exercises with us at home was hard work.

If you’re thinking “How can we possibly afford this without getting a 2nd mortgage on the house!?”…

Homeschool Made Simple

I have some suggestions of other things to try first:

1) Primitive Reflex Integration:

Find an OT (Occupational Therapist) who can help with primitive reflex integration. You will have to ask around and do your research to find an OT who will work with your child to integrate primitive reflexes. We had 3 OT’s before we have the one my son has now. His current OT takes a more integrative approach and it’s covered by insurance. If I had found her before Brain Balance, we probably would not have done it. It’s important to remember that OT’s are not all the same! Do your research!

2) Diet:  

Try some diet changes at home first. Diet can be huge for some kids, especially kids with sensory issues and digestive disturbances. I will warn you this can be overwhelming to navigate. This is our favorite gluten and dairy free cookbook!

Update: There is now a nutrition plan book put out by the man who started Brain Balance.  I haven’t read it, but if you’re considering the Brain Balance program it’s probably worth checking out!

 

3) Vision Therapy:

Look into Vision Therapy, which is sometimes covered by insurance. A huge part of Brain Balance, at least for us, was the vision exercises. As far as I know, Vision Therapy does the same type of exercises and more extensively (and under the care of an optometrist). *We are actually currently in the process of looking into Vision Therapy, as it has been recommended by our son’s OT and Neuropsychologist.  **Edited to add: Go here to read about our results from vision therapy.

4) Bio-Medical Interventions:

Research bio-medical interventions. Often kiddos with developmental delays or other issues have trouble detoxing and are holding on to toxins, especially heavy metals. Looking back, I wish we had done a detox protocol BEFORE beginning Brain Balance. I think we probably would have seen a more lasting change had we done that first.

For detox, I suggest looking into and researching Advanced TRS. Please know that is also my personal sales link. If you want to learn more check out this FB Group: TRS – A Safe Heavy Metal Detox.  There are other detox protocols out there as well. I’m just not familiar with them. 

5) Brain Balance Home Program:

Read the book Disconnected Kids  by Robert Melillo (Brain Balance’s founder) and try to implement a home program.

One big attraction of Brain Balance is that it encompasses most of the above. It does make it less overwhelming to have a “one-stop shop”.

Edited to add: Another resource worth checking out is Dianne Craft’s Brain Integration Program.  You can find Dianne’s website here. Other Considerations

Brain Balance is a franchise. It is not a medical institution. They classify themselves as a learning center. The “coach” your child will be working with for each session is not a doctor or a certified therapist. They are an employee of Brain Balance. I will say, our “coach” did a great job with our son. We also met with the director (who was very knowledgeable and competent) at the beginning of our child’s six months, once in the middle, and then at the end.

If we could go back in time, would we do it again?

This question is hard to answer and to be honest, I go back and forth about this. Not that it matters because what’s done is done. However, I realize that my answer to this question may be significant to someone researching the program. Usually, I answer “yes” to this question. We did see major improvements in a six-month time frame. Most noteworthy, our son was able to integrate 4 of his 5 retained reflexes (I must point out here though, he gained his Moro reflex back). His listening comprehension when from a 3.5-year-old to a 6.5-year-old, which was HUGE.

We did feel that through the Brain Balance program we were able to get to know our child better, which is significant. However, If I could go back to the very beginning, when we first discovered all of our son’s delays at age 2 or 3, then I would have found an OT who did reflex integration and done some heavy metal detoxing.

Final Thoughts

Finally, I do not think Brain Balance is a scam, but I also do not think it is the only answer. I truly hope this unbiased review of Brain Balance is helpful to parents considering the program. If you have any questions feel free to contact me, through the contact form on my page.

Blessings to you on your journey with your child! And if you’re feeling overwhelmed, please remember this is a marathon, not a sprint.

Disclaimer: The purpose of this blog post is to give an unbiased review of Brain Balance from someone who has had a child go through it.  I am not a medical professional. Any advice I give here is my own and based on personal experience.

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