[senco-forum] Jerky Eye Movement

Dear All

My mail box has been buzzing all afternoon since my original posting.

I have now had an extended chat with the person who did the tests – Paul
Adler Optometrist – someone that I have been sending children to for years –
lots of published research – and does a lot of work with students who have a
visual problem that gets in the way of their learning like this.

Briefly he sees my students problem as too rapid an eye movement with not
enough visual discrimination before the speed – so initially she needs to
slow down a bit.  The biggest problem he finds for all students is the 1-1
time involved in doing this on a daily basis – generally by a parent who
will not have the expertise.

He in fact – currently uses four programmes from the USA – and on mentioning
the forum – he suggests that we would find details of these at

www.visiontherapysolutions.net.

He used to use Ann Arbor materials until he discovered this – and for my
student he has recommended the PVT programme  - Perceptual Visual Tracking –
with around 40 levels @£95.00  This provides visual tracking – both
horizontally L-R and vertically top to bottom.

When this has improved he also recommends Dynamic Reader – which he finds
does a wonderful catch up job for those who have fallen behind – or like my
student – have needed something else done first.  His star student managed
an enormous catch up in reading age after using the second programme for
three months.  However – he points out – it is all American with no UK
English version – but it still works – and students are using this and
transferring back to UK English with vastly improved reading ages

I am about to visit him – and have a go on the programmes he carries which
are all new to me – and I will post my feelings once I have seen them.

He talked at some length about children’s visual problems which get in the
way of their learning.  Often they haven’t the vocabulary or are aware of
what they do with their eyes and they might experiment if the can make their
vision better by the way they look at things.  He also quoted what he called
his most “huggable child” – because this was someone actually prepared to
see what he could do who was having trouble with describing his focussing
problems.  When he tried to see what he could do with his eyes by making
something go out of focus and then bringing it back into focus – he found
that he could do it – but didn’t know how he had done it – but knew that he
had done it once – so he could keep on trying and then know what he had to
do once he had done it again – a man after my own heart fostering
independent learners – I don’t appear to have explained this very well – but
I knew what he meant when he was saying it.

If you are local to Stotfold on the Beds Herts borders – or St Albans – he
provides a service highly recommended by me.

On looking at his site – which I should do more often – I find that he also
has a mobile clinic that he will take into schools to do eye tests free –
and I wish that I had know that when I was teaching because I would have
called him in for each new intake!

So thank you all for your advice so far – I will update more when I have
some more news – and I shall keep on keeping on with what we are actually
doing with the reading – and writing.

Regards

Ruth – Oh and “He” is Paul Adler - optometrist