Vision Therapy??? Really? Does It Work?

My daughter was diagnosed with strabismus during 1st grade - we found out that she didn't have any 3-D vision and that she was alternating using one eye at a time (she was so good at it that she didn't have any problems with reading...) We did 1 yr. of VT at Dr. Kathleen Kinney's office (love, love, love Peggy!) and my daughter now has 3-D vision and is converging a lot more of the time. I would agree with other posts here that 3 would be too young and that it is a big commitment in time, money and effort. It might be worthwhile to talk to Dr Kinney or someone in your area to see what they think.

My six year old has just graduated from vision therapy at Dr. Kathleen Kinney's office. He was there because of "convergence insufficiency." Which basically means that he was seeing double although you could not look at him and tell.
It was a rigorous and expensive year but successful. We went to VT once a week and then had "homework." It was $105 per week + downtown parking fees + care for my other child. Insureance would pay about $30 of this. It had a huge time commitment as well. We signed a contract that we could not miss more than two appointments without making them up. If we missed more than two we would have to pay for them. We had to buy a computer program for $150 as well.
We did do the homework which took about 10- 15 minutes per day everyday in the mornings. My son hated it and it was hard but he did make measurable progress each time it was evaluated. We used a lot of bribery and threats. It was not fun for us to make him to do something that he did not want to do and was difficult for him (it made his eyes hurt), but it was something only he could do. We sat next to him and provided encouragement. We actually graduated 3 months earlier than the original plan.
My son was on the young side of the vision therapy client list. He did great as a kindergartener but there were days that he did not want to cooperate and the therapist had a bit of a tough time dealing with somebody who was "pre-reason." I think 3 is probably too young for VT (and the vision therapists). It may not be worth your $ and time at this age. It was pretty sophisticated things they wanted my son to do. Sometimes I felt like I was wasting my $ when he refused to participate.
You can google "Dr. Kathleen Kinney" and check out her website. There is also the COVD website which has a search engine for optometrists who do vision therapy.
The schools would not cover my son's VT because "it is controversial." Apparently, opthomologists and optometrists have some sort of rivalry or disagreement. I think VT is worth looking in to. I have a friend who's daughter did it all with the patching, glasses, surgery and VT.
All I know is my kid is reading at the second grade level. As far as I am concerned it was a success for us.

I don't know but if you want to consult with a vision therapy group, Kathleen Kinney in the Melbourne Tower on third ave in downtown work with kids for vision therapy. They have an entire suite dedicated to it and the kids there seemed happy enough.

HTH

I have been using vision therapy for about 6 months and its helped alot. I used it for tracking problems, convergence insufficensy, and visual processing disorder. Its been really helpful. I see Dr. Neena Gabrielle at Eastside Family Vision Care in Kirkland. My vision therapists name is Kelly. Shes AMAZING,. so helpful. The do have to pay partially out of pocket, Premera Microsoft will only cover part of the cost. HTH~!
M. M

Both of my twin boys had surgery for Strabismus, one at the age of 3 and the other at 4.

They are both slightly far-sighted. We figured glasses might help them. I couldn't get them to wear glasses. The glasses didn't make enough of a difference for them to keep them on. It was horrible, but I'm still glad we tried.

I had heard of vision-therapy and something about prisms (I can't recall if the prisms were related to the therapy or not - my boys are now 9). The research I had done with vision therapy (again this was over 5 years ago), didn't seem too promising.

Here's what I can offer from the surgical stand point: The first twin to receive surgery had his left eye crossing in. The doctor will wait until you've had a few visits with the eye remaining in the same position. They will not do surgery if the eye is still turning in. You probably already know that. Anyway, when Twin A had his surgery they did a muscle in each eye to correct his vision. The surgery didn't take long, but waiting for him to wake took a few hours. When he woke, his eyes were blood red and when he cried he had red tears, broke my heart. The tears were only upon waking. Once he ate a popsicle we were allowed to leave. We had eye ointment and drops that we needed to give him. Since it was August when his surgery was done, he had to wear very dark sunglasses. By that evening, his sight was getting back to normal (we discovered he could count when he told us he saw two spiders - there was only one). His eyes were red for a few days, but cleared up quickly and he was fine by the next morning. We had to chase him down to wear his sunglasses when he wanted to go outside.

Now, Twin B's surgery. His eye took almost a year to settle. Twin B's right eye was turning in. When his surgery was done, they only did the muscle in one eye. He recovered just as quickly as his brother. However, he seems to have moments where his eye gets lazy sometimes. It's not constant and it's not always noticeable, but we are making another doctor appointment.

If you go with surgery I'd ask about doing the muscles in both eyes. It seemed to work well and seems to hold up over the years.

If you try vision therapy and don't mind, I would love to hear how it goes. I think you can contact me through this list.

Good luck and I'm looking forward on reading the answers you receive.

I'd be interested to hear what happened. My two-year-old is in vision therapy for accommodative esotropia (strabismus, intermittent as with your child) and it's going well.

A friend of mine had her 5-6 year old in vision therapy for a few months. The problem wasn't lazy eye, it was that she couldn't track things properly. You would be talking to her and both eyes sort of wandered away to nothing in particular. This was affecting her learning her alphabet because she literally couldn't focus her eyes on the letters to memorize them.

I think what you are dealing with may be different from the above. The lazy eye thing is usually a surgical matter if the patch doesn't work. But then, why not get a consult with the vision therapist?? It couldn't hurt to ask, because there is nothing worse than having to put your baby under anesthesia!

I have been a teacher and a vision therapist for almost 13 years. I have seen vision therapy make a huge difference in many children and adults. Please visit www.covd.org for more information and to find a vision therapy doctor in your area. There are also many vision therapy groups on facebook. Finally, when you talk to your child's ophthalmologist, be sure to ask "how many surgeries" it will take to correct your child's vision. Surgery is generally thought to be cosmetic and does little to promote binocular vision (using both eyes together). Vision therapy works to train the brain to interpret the input coming in from both eyes.

absolutely! my daughter was 20/200 before we did eye therapy and she's 20/40 now with glasses. (you couldn't tell she had vision problems from looking at her tho so we have a different lazy eye.) even the vision therapist was surprised at how much she improved. we patched for several hours a day and were given homework to do, as well as weekly visits with the eye therapist. my daughter wasn't crazy about any of it but we plowed ahead. we saw laura at the hazel dell office of northwest eyecare for therapy and dr. bruce in the clackamas office for checkups.

i was very happy with everything except that it was hard to get ahold of laura to reschedule appointments. she wasn't the best with following up. there was another therpist there but she seemed more suited to deal with older kids as she didn't seem to know what to do when my daughter didn't want to sit still at age 5. oh, i don't think they recommend doing eye therapy until 4 or 5, for just that reason. but you still have a few years before you won't be able to get improvement. if i were you, i'd wait to do eye therapy and then if that didn't work, try for surgery.

Since the eye turn is not constant and alternates, surgery is not recommended. You should definitely find a developmental optometrist to pursue vision therapy, look on www.covd.org. Look at the providers websites, call the clinics, get a couple of different opinions and pick the best fit for you and your child. You want to go with a vision therapy clinic that is creative with your child since she is younger. Treatment can involve a combination of patching - binasal patching might be a good alternative when the eyes turn in as it will help redirect the eyes outward - or flat top bifocal glasses - the magnification and relax the eyes to decrease the turn - and vision therapy to help train the eyes and brain to coordinate. 80 percent of learning goes through the eyes so you want to do vision therapy soon as your child is experiencing either double vision or blurred vision or processing with one eye. Imagine holding a ball that feels round but looks oval due to the double vision, this is confusing and conflicting information which will slow down learning. You are on the right track to look into vision therapy now. Great job for being a great mom that is advocating for their child!

I did vision therapy with Kathleen Kinney's group for about 6 months. My goal was to improve my vision. Through the therapy and the exercises they gave me to practice, I was able to decrease my prescription by 3 diopters. I know your situation is a little different, but I was extremely happy with the results. I would have continued, but it became expensive and I didn't have a lot of time to practice my home exercises. I highly recommend at least talking to someone who does vision therapy to find out if it would be helpful. Especially if you can prevent surgery. Good luck!