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JASON'S STORY After visiting a developmental optometrist named Melvin Fox who examined my eyes did I find the answer to the question I had when I was 13 years old. There were a number of things wrong with the way my eyes worked. The one in particular that made playing sports like baseball so hard for me was that my eyes' flexibility of focus was almost nonexistent. Just for background information, the flexibility of focus is the ability of the muscles within each eye to quickly, comfortably and accurately change the power of each eye's lens for various distances. This skill is essential when playing ball sports and copying from a chalkboard. Normally, when a person looks at something far away and then looks at something at arm's length, his eyes change focus almost instantly. However, for me it took a longer than normal amount of time to do such functions. So, a baseball that was sixty feet away at one second and then right next to my face half a second later was almost impossible for me to see. Every time at bat, I would see the ball in the pitcher's hand one second and then in the catcher's mitt the next. Never would I see the ball along the path it traveled. This made hitting the ball very difficult.
Playing baseball was not the only thing I remember having trouble doing. As far back as I can remember, reading was always something that I did not want to do. As a little kid I would always get tired after reading for just a little while and my comprehension of what I read was very poor. Consequently, school was never something I did well or liked until seventh grade. Somehow, I made myself do the work in junior high and high school and got excellent grades. But throughout high school, while getting good grades, frankly, I had to work extremely hard. Compared to other students I knew in high school who got grades similar to mine, I had to spend an inordinate amount of time studying. I always read every chapter in my science books at least eight times and sometimes more. While this did result in excellent grades and an almost photographic memory of what I read, I was always dead tired after studying. As a result, I missed out on a lot of fun in high school.
After the examination by Dr. Fox, I also found out why reading was never something I liked to do. Besides the flexibility of my eyes being extremely poor, the convergence, focus alignment and fusion of my eyes was very bad. Convergence is the ability to fixate objects within arms distance comfortably. This skill is necessary for working at a desk. When convergence ability is weak, all desk work is carried out with only one eye doing the work of both eyes. Focus alignment describes the degree to which the focusing muscles within each eye are relaxed for close work. When this is abnormal, the eyes store tension from studying and usually nearsightedness develops. Lastly, fusion is the ability to integrate the two separate images from each eye into a single perception. This requires muscle coordination as well as neurological blending in the brain. When fusion stamina is low, the eyes are generally uncomfortable and inefficient. As a result, comprehension is reduced. When Dr. Fox explained this to me, it was like being enlightened. All my life I knew something was wrong with me. I had thought that I was dumb because I did not like to read and had to work so much harder than everybody else to do well in school.
It wasn't until I was a senior in college that someone was able to explain to me exactly what I had been trying to describe to my parents and ophthalmologist my whole life. While I had done very well in high school grade wise, I began to do poorly my second year in college when the reading load increased beyond anything I had in high school. Now, not only was the reading tiresome and my comprehension low, but I would experience something that had only happened occasionally in high school much more regularly in college. This was something similar to a seizure after reading for extended periods of time. It felt like I had just hit a brick wall and blacked out for a minute. As this happened more frequently in college I began to worry and finally told my parents. It wasn't until after I had seen an educational psychologist and a dyslexic counselor that we found Dr. Fox.
From elementary school on, I had regular eye exams by the ophthalmologist. I would tell him about my struggle with reading, but his exams would never find anything wrong with my eyes. The reason was that my acuity or what most people call vision was 20/20. Only when I went to see Dr. Fox did I find out what the problem was. The good thing about my problem is that it is fixable. I now go to a developmental optometrist for vision therapy and many of my eye problems have been corrected. My reading speed has increased as well as my reading comprehension. Studying has become easier and more enjoyable for me.
While I am glad that I have found the problem and a way to correct it, it is also upsetting to me that we didn't discover it before I started school. If the problem had been corrected then, my life would have been much more enjoyable and school would not have been the struggle that it has been. I would have had more time to develop other interests and more energy to expand my horizons.
Jason Kirk finished his Vision Therapy the fall of 1996. After his first two months of therapy he accomplished straight A's for the remainder of his college education. He graduated from the University of California San Diego on June 14, 1997 with a double major in microbiology and history. He has aspirations to become a physician and feels confident that he can accomplish his goal.
As Jason's mother I am so glad this information is finally reading the public at large. My hope is that school systems and parents nationwide are aware of Behavioral Optometry and seek help for a child as soon as possible through vision screening as part of a child's evaluation for learning problems.
Tom and Cindy Marcucci
I now have a wonderful 10 year old son who has had a severe vision problem for nine of the previous 10 years.
When Tony was a toddler, I tried to teach him the alphabet. I had flash cards, and each night before bed we would go over several letters. At first I though it would be a fun game, but it became a lesson in frustration. Tony would "learn" several letters then the following evening "forget" them. He tried so hard and yet by the time he finished kindergarten there were still several letters that he had difficulty recognizing consistently.
First grade passed into second. Tony continued confusing letters, reversed letters and words when writing, wrote uphill and downhill, and always lost his place when reading. He could not read the simplest textbook by himself yet when I would read or spell to him out loud he could answer questions and tell me what I spelled easily.
When Tony started having headaches during school, we went to a pediatric ophthalmologist. She performed a very thorough exam on Tony and said he had 20/20 vision. He was still having problems. He couldn't finish his assignments in school, and each evening he would spend at least an hour completing schoolwork. I began throwing away assignments that he hadn't completed. It was just too frustrating and he needed to practice reading at night instead of completing school assignments. Reading became even more frustrating than the school work. His sister who was in kindergarten had begun to read, and she would shout out words while he was struggling over them. He was devastated. Tony would toss the book across the room shouting, "I am stupid and dumb, and I will never learn to read."
I requested that the school test Tony for a learning disability. The school felt that testing wasn't necessary but tested him observation and individual testing, they found Tony was very distractible and had difficulty staying on task. The counselor also felt that Tony was impulsive. He implied I should schedule a doctor appointment to see if Tony had Attention Deficit Disorder. His IQ had been tested and found to be on the low end of normal, so the fact that my son was struggling was only to be expected. He just wasn't that smart to begin with. Due to the fact that he wasn't very intelligent, and since he was not two grade levels behind (the state requirement for in-school help), there was nothing they could do.
I found a teacher at school who could tutor my son after school for an hour to help him learn to read. This was his third tutor. I saw little improvement.
When he took the California Achievement Test and scored 13 out of 100, the school denied him help. You see, in the fourth grade Tony would take the Michigan Education Assessment Program (MEAP), and if he didn't pass this the school district would lose money. Suddenly, they had a stake in his abilities.
Summer came and Tony started baseball, something he loved and had always been good at, but that summer Tony struggled. He was no longer the starting pitcher, because he had trouble getting the ball over the plate. He also had trouble batting. His self-esteem was at an all-time low. Now he not only struggled in school, but he was a failure at sports. Could it get any worse? It did.
At the start of fourth grade, Tony could not read at all. We were reading from a "Goosebumps" book, and he would read no more than half a line, the story would make no sense, and yet Tony would go on "reading" words that just didn't belong together. I had never been more concerned, because my son did not even know he was
That fall we started with a new tutor. Mrs. Payne asked me if I had ever had his eyes tested. By this time he had has three eye exams because of the headaches and trouble copying from the blackboard, but then she showed me the P.A.V.E. brochure. I must have read it a dozen times. It was my son to a "T." I checked every box on the symptom checklist. I felt like crying. Was this the problem?! My son was stupid, not lazy, not ADD, and he did try hard enough. In fact, he probably worked harder that any one in his class to maintain the grades he had!
I was angry! Why hadn't I heard of this before? Why didn't my school know about this? Or his doctor? Or any of his numerous tutors or classroom teachers? By this time, he had seen eight different teaching specialists, had five classroom teachers, and four medical doctors, plus the school psychologists, counselors and principal, and no one had ever suggested that there could be anything wrong with his eyes other than the need for glasses. The school had said my son was on the lower end of a normal IQ. Of course, they had never considered the fact that he could barely READ the test due to his blurred vision. He could be a genius for all they knew.
I do believe in Vision Therapy. It was the best investment I ever made. Tony cannot even remember what his vision was like prior to treatment. I am so proud of my son. If it was not for Tony, I might have believed the school and given up on my son as just not being a good student. Tony wanted to learn to read so badly. It hurts to think of all the other children who are struggling and being told they are just not trying hard enough.
Imagine if in second grade when I asked for the initial testing that they had given Tony this kind of vision exam or even recommended specifically that he be tested for learning related vision problems. Years of struggle could have been avoided and the school would have saved money spent on testing Tony for learning disability when that was not his problem.
In February of 1998, Tony took the MEAP test. He had just finished Vision Therapy and had not received any additional tutoring. He passed the test.
This year in baseball Tony was back in his lead pitching position, and I have never seen him play better. He had 10 home runs in the regular season and made the tournament travel team where his team placed second in the state. Tony was the fourth batter.
If that final tutor had not known about Vision Therapy, I do not know what would have happened to Tony. It scares me to think of him struggling with learning in middle school. He would not have been allowed to play sports in school if he were not able to maintain a certain grade level, which would have made him more susceptible to drugs and other unacceptable behaviors. Knowing that he needed to succeed in school and not being able to help my child accomplish that was the most frustrating experience of my life. I have cried many tears over just "wanting my child to learn to read."
Thank you, P.A.V.E., for your efforts on behalf of children!
Sincerely,
Cindy Marcucci
For further information concerning the prevention, early detection and correction of learning related vision problems contact P.A.V.E.® at 800-PAVE-988 or e-mail us at info@pavevision.org.
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