How to Recognize a Vision-Related Reading Problem

Where was this information when I was fighting our school district to educate my son. Our son, Jordan, was diagnoised with a massive brain tumor at the age of 13. To remove the tumor the surgeon had to cut the vision field which left our son blind in the right half of both eyes, along with speech apashia and other issues. Trying to explain to the schools that his vision impaired his learning process was like talking to a brick wall. We fought and almost had to sue them to get them to put him in a reading program. He went from a 9th grade reading level, reading Lord of the Rings, before his surgery to a 2nd grade reading level. Even though this wasn't due to his lack of vision, at least that I am aware of, it hindered his education. He worked extremly hard to regain his reading skills. He had to have another surgery 2 years after the first to remove more tumor. The surgery was 10 hours shorter than the first and he came out of surgery just fine but within an hour of his surgery suffered a series of grand mal seizures leaving him paralyzed on the right side of his body. Thru much physical, occupational and speech therapy for a year he regained his movement. He still struggles with reading but works very hard to improve. He graduated from Hight School in 2007 with his class, which was an awesome accomplishment. He is currently serving a two year mission for your church and doing great. As far as we are aware there isn't anything that can be done to imrpove his reading and processing skills. He continues to work at it daily and worries about college and how he will cope with all of the reading. He is one of the most amazing person you will ever meet. He has worked extremely hard to get where he is today. I hope that your message gets out to parents so they can help be aware and help the educators know how this impacts their childs education.

Thank you for this article Dr. Kaplan and bringing awareness to what we need to know. I will actually be using it at a legislative meetng next week.
I learned the hardway, through the needless death of my grandson Joey, healthy eyes start at birth. It is vital we do the same thing for sight that we have done for hearing.
Children's Services in Palm Beach County has printed a pamphlet at the urging of the commission with the information parents need to be aware of starting at birth to protect their children's sight. This is a major step in the right direction hopefully will be the beginning of the "Parent's Right to Know".
We have been bringing awareness and doing educational workshops delivering "Joey's Message" since his death almost nine years ago. The majority of parents, just like our family so many years ago, have never seen the standard of care performed correctly. The direct ophthalmoscope needs to be used in a dark room at every well check up! This is how we get to the eye doctor. It is the stethoscope for our eyes...the detection, referral in order to prevent instrument. For some reason, the doctors have been arguing with parents about turning the lights out! They have lost sight of what they are looking for and think when they see red it is enough. As you well know, in order to get a 'true' red reflex and be able to detect a problem on the back of the eye, the darker the room the better. Many are not taking the time to look. They see red in a second and stop. If we did not listen with the stethoscope we would not detect. If we do not look with the ophthalmoscope they will not detect either.
We are also trying to legislate mandatory eye dilation exams for infants at the well baby visit. The nurse will administer the drop after she weighs the infant and at the end of the exam the pediatrician will turn out the lights and use the ophthalmoscope. The enhanced standard of care for infants is vital to getting to you, the eye doctor, in time to save their sight, eyes and lives.
We took a photo of Joey's tumor during the Thanksgiving holidays while visiting Santa at the mall in 1998. The photo would have saved his life had we realized it was not just a weird reflection, put a Retnoblastoma tumor reflecting the light of the flash. The same picture has been saving sight and lives of children across our planet since Joey's death. Most of the children have other more common eye diseases, but many have had the worst one, Retinoblastoma. Sadly, most of our parents are still learing the hard way.
Thank you again for this important article. Working together, we will give our children the best sight possible when they start school. Joey is smiling!
Peace, Pam Bergsma (Joey's Grandma) lovejoey@bellsouth.net

I would have never dreamed my daughter had a vision problem. We noticed her laying her head down to write and assumed she was lazy - not wanting to sit up straight - she never said a thing. She had loved doing word search puzzles since pre-K (even when she could not read the word she could recognize the letters)
In 2nd grade she started complaining the word search puzzles of her spelling words were too hard. Again we thought she was being lazy as we had no other signs.
I noticed a few times she had copied things wrong from one paper to another and we assumed she was rushing.
She made a few minor mistakes copying from the board and her teacher told us she was not paying attention.
My gut put the things together and questioned why a child who loved to do word search suddenly did not,I bought a large pring word search book and she did the puzzles on after the other.
I decided to take her to the eye doctor for a check (she passed the "pre- screen" at school)
She was near sided in one eye and far sided in the other.
She does not have to wear them all the time, but needs them to read and do school work. although her vision is good It was difficult for her to focus and this extra time came across to the teacher as stalling etc.

Thank you for writing this article! My 12-year old daughter was diagnosed with Ocular Motor Dysfunction when she was in third grade. We initially had her tested for dyslexia which she turned out not to have. When I took her to the optometrist, he told me that most parents don't realize how vision affects a child's learning ability which in turn affects their behavior. He said most parents just assume their child is ADD/ADHD. I always knew it was not an attention issue with my child because she could focus on anything but reading. I hope your article is a light bulb for some parents.

This is a great article and something many parents do not know about. In second grade my daughter was having major problems with spelling and her handwriting was terrible. Her teacher suggested we have her vision tested by a pediatric optomotrist or opthamologist. We did & she was diagnosed with focus issues (primarily, they detected a few other things as well) and now wears bifocules. I think one of the biggest downfalls of schools is that they do "vision testing" and if your child passes you assume that they are ok. But there are so many other vision problems that are not detected by these school tests, like tracking, focus, if the eyes are working together, the list goes on, which can majorly affect their learning ability and if not treated can delay it.

Yes, I totally agree. My son was 4 years old and continued telling me that he couldn't see the board. I prepared an eye exam board and began giving him an eye test and sure enough; he flunked it with flying colors. So, he has been in glasses since he was five years old. Even in sports, it is only certain sports that I will allow him to play because he can't see the ball. The sports gargles are too expensive for me to pay out of pocket.
So, my suggestion to parents are to recognize the issues early and take a stance on corrective measures for your child. Though mine may have to forever wear glasses, but we know that he needs them and we feed the need accordingly.
Thanks for the topic.

I actually had no idea that my daughter had vision problems, until I took her to her 5 year old check up and the doctor highly advised that I have my daughter seen by an optomologist. So, we took her to the eye doctor and found out that she is far sided. I highly suggest that everyone have their child tested, because one can have a hard time knowing whether a child is suffering from vision difficulties or not. I also learned that a child's vision can change within a matter of 6 months. So it is suggested to get vision testing at least once a year or more if needed. The eye doctor will mention whether more appointments are needed within in a year.

Coming from a teacher, I think this is a great blog. I am usually the one who catches the vision problem and parents always feel so bad for not knowing the signs. It is so true... the kids don't even know they have a vision problem. They think what they see is normal. Be second grade (what I teach) if this problem is undiagnosed, the child is usually about a year behind in reading. I encourage all parents of children who are struggling with learning have their child checked for vision problems. As a teacher it is the first thing I have checked and usually the culprit! When the child finally gets their glasses it takes them some time to catch up but the world is a whole new place to them! The next struggle... to get the child to remember to wear the glasses! :-)

Thank you so much for this article. My 6 year old is currently displaying all of these problems and we just got him a pair of glasses for starters. I have been researching dyslexia as well and have started the process of getting his school involved with figuring out how best to help him. This gives me hope that we may just have a vision problem with tracking or otherwise. His optometrist told me if his reading was not improving within a couple of months to bring him back in for further testing. This is the first article like this I have read with alternative answers than a label of Dyslexia to explain his difficulites. Again, thank you.

Jenny Cook