About two weeks ago difficult child came to me and asked, "Has easy child told you about his eyes?" I said no, and asked what he was talking about. He said that when they play video games easy child has been telling difficult child that he can't read the words on the screen because he can't see them clearly. I question easy child and he admits to having trouble seeing things clearly.
On Monday I took him to get his eyes examined and, if needed, get a pair of glasses.
The doctor is checking him and she is holding a pen in front of him, telling him to follow the pen with his eyes and not to move his head. He does it, and she then asks him to do it again. She then turns to me and asked, "Does he have trouble in school?" Ummmm....yes, and how did she know that? I started to tell her about struggles he's been having and the hours of testing that he underwent last year. She said to me, "I can tell you that his eyes are not focusing properly. They jump around and don't stay focused on what he's looking at."
Then she did a demonstration. She took us out into the hall and taped to the wall was a sheet of paper that had rows of letters. She asked easy child to read the first and last letters of each line. He couldn't do it. He kept skipping lines because his eyes can't follow from one line to the next.
This would explain why reading is so hard for him, and if reading is hard then everything else is going to be a struggle because you need to be able to read for everything.
So, now easy child has a shiny new pair of reading glasses and he has an appointment with another doctor in the practice who has more experience with this so that he can look him over and give him exercises to do to help train the eyes to work the way they are supposed to.
Just one more piece to the puzzle, I suppose.
On Monday I took him to get his eyes examined and, if needed, get a pair of glasses.
The doctor is checking him and she is holding a pen in front of him, telling him to follow the pen with his eyes and not to move his head. He does it, and she then asks him to do it again. She then turns to me and asked, "Does he have trouble in school?" Ummmm....yes, and how did she know that? I started to tell her about struggles he's been having and the hours of testing that he underwent last year. She said to me, "I can tell you that his eyes are not focusing properly. They jump around and don't stay focused on what he's looking at."
Then she did a demonstration. She took us out into the hall and taped to the wall was a sheet of paper that had rows of letters. She asked easy child to read the first and last letters of each line. He couldn't do it. He kept skipping lines because his eyes can't follow from one line to the next.
This would explain why reading is so hard for him, and if reading is hard then everything else is going to be a struggle because you need to be able to read for everything.
So, now easy child has a shiny new pair of reading glasses and he has an appointment with another doctor in the practice who has more experience with this so that he can look him over and give him exercises to do to help train the eyes to work the way they are supposed to.
Just one more piece to the puzzle, I suppose.