EXCELerated Vision

Reading and Attention Problems Found with Common Eye Condition in Children ...A Proven Treatment for Convergence Insufficiency

Parents, teachers and health care professionals should see this video by the National Eye Institute. Too often children with reading and attention problems are overlooked in the healthcare delivery system, labeled with ADHD, learning disabilities and/or behavior problems when instead they have a common undiagnosed eye condition known as convergence insufficiency (CI).

Watch this video and see what the director of the National Eye Institute (NEI), researchers as well as a mother of a child who had CI, have to say. The results of the National Institute of Health (NIH) "double blind" multicenter research project completed in 2008 found that the only proven treatment for CI is office-based vision therapy. Other approaches such as home based remedies or prism glasses are not effective.

Children with CI often have symptoms that can impact reading, learning and attention. After treatment the patient will often show dramatic improvement in reading, learning and attention and concentration for near vision visual tasks.

At Wow Vision Therapy, office-based vision therapy is provided by a Doctor supervised Board Certified Vision Therapist along with vision therapy assistants.  Once successfully treated, the results are life long without the need for further maintenance treatment.

Dan L. Fortenbacher, O.D., FCOVD

David's Story...Binocular Vision Problems can Cause Reading and Learning Problems

When a child struggles in reading and learning it is critically important to have their vision evaluated for not only eye health and eye sight, but also binocular vision. A child who has a binocular vision problem, such as convergence insufficiency(CI) or intermittent exotropia will typically experience reading and learning problems. Study's show that approximately 5% of children in the classroom have CI.

 

Parents should rely only on the advise of  eye doctors who are experienced in working with children. Too often a child with a binocular vision problem will needlessly struggle because of misinformation or lack of a proper diagnosis.  David's story is a good example of a child who struggled for 4 years before his mother found help.

Dan L. Fortenbacher, O.D., FCOVD

 

               David's Story

David was identified with a vision problem by the county vision screening in kindergarten (he failed the depth perception or ball in the box test).  He was referred to see an eye doctor.  David was originally seen by an ophthalmologist and diagnosed with intermittent exotropia in his left eye.  He had 20/20 vision and seemed to have excellent control of his exotropia.  The doctors believed that David would compensate for his vision problems and these problems were believed not to have any effect on his tracking abilities or learning skills.

 

David seemed to be fine in his developing skill set, however, by the end of first grade, he began to struggle.  He started to have headaches and tummy aches before school, when doing homework, and while riding in the car.

 

 David’s struggle continued into second grade causing him to fall further behind in reading and develop a strong dislike for school.  Soon we attended and consulted another veteran ophthalmologist for a second opinion.  Tutoring seemed to help, but still did not seem to solve the problem completely.  The second ophthalmologist again stated that vision was not the cause of learning difficulty.

 

In third grade we were referred to Dr. Seim’s office at Mattawan Family Eye care who suggested that David’s vision was causing possible double & unclear vision affecting not only his reading, but all facets of learning.  She suggested that David see Dr. Fortenbacher at Wow Vision Therapy in St. Joseph for further testing and treatment.

 

THANK YOU … Debra (his vision therapist), Dr. Fortenbacher, and all vision therapy staff at Wow Vision Therapy.  David has now completed vision therapy. He has gained confidence in himself, and no longer dislikes school.  David no longer gets headaches when he reads, plays video games, does homework, or concentrates in the car.  ** David is now a successful 4th grade student currently pulling an "A" in Mathematics, a "B" in Language Arts, and an "A-" in Reading! (Not bad after the public school recommended he not move forward to 4th grade.)

-Terry Elenga, David's mother

Joey's story - Success overcoming Convergence Insufficiency

My husband and I realized about half way through first grade that our son Joey wasn't reading like he should be.  He did well with spelling and math but he struggled in reading.  He was also reversing his letters quite frequently and we thought is was possible that he was dyslexic and started investigating the process for a diagnosis.

One day I was having a conversation with a collegue at work about my concern for Joey. She listened to my story and told me about her son who had similar problems until he had vision therapy. She recommended that we go to WoW Vision Therapy in Saint Joseph, Mi to have Joey tested because her son had gone through the program and had great results.

Joey's examination with Dr. Dan Fortenbacher revealed that he had problems with his eye coordination and focusing skills - a condition called convergence insufficiency and accommodative disorder.

After Joey had a diagnosis we were relieved that we had something tangible we could understand and work toward a goal.  Before vision therapy Joey was seeing double and the letters were moving off the page when he tried to read.  So, prior to vision therapy Joey tested at school below a first grade reading level. Now after he has completed vision therapy Joey is reading at third grade level and he continues to improve. 

Joey is much more confident about his abilities!  In baseball now and he is able to hit the ball more consistently and better than before.  We've also noticed that his balance and the way his body moves are better.  He is smooth and natural in his motions.  We are so pleased with where Joey is now because we believe he will continue to improve in his reading and even more, he can realize his potential in everything he does.

Thank you to his vision therapists, Monica and Jackie, for all of your efforts to bring Joey to this level!

Deanna Schmidt, mother

Struggling... to success!

The following is a "Story of Success" provided to our office by the mother of one of our patients- Tyler. This story is special because of the rapid changes that have occured in Tyler who was signficantly behind in his vision development and school prior to beginning vision therapy. Here is Tyler's Story, writen by his mother- Lori Loebach:

While Tyler was in Kindergarten we noticed that he struggled with letters and reading.  It was frustrating for him.  He would ask you to read a short story for him and then he would memorize it instead of reading. His struggles seemed to continue into his first grade.  He was extremely frustrated with reading.  He would state things were too hard to see on the page or he couldn't see it.  He hated reading and would cry all the time about it.  It was a struggle to do homework.  His writing skills were at times so illegible.  He talked about his hands would shake and he couldn't write on the lines without his writing being all over the place.  He was very frustrated and would say he was dumb and couldn't do what the other kids could.  Because he is so smart we kept hearing he just needs to slow down.

We were concerned that was the case until we met Mrs. McArthur, an occupational therapist from Gateway, and she referred us to Dr. Fortenbacher.  Tyler has made great improvements.  He has gone from being considered a non-reader to being one of the top readers in his class.  He enjoys reading more.  His writing has improved tremendously.  He is very happy and loves coming to Vision Therapy with Jackie.  We would definitely recommend Vision Therapy.  We can't say enough what it has done for Tyler.

Stubborn...or needing VT?

Yesterday I was at Barnes and Nobles with my son Levi. There was this adorable little boy sitting by his mom reading a book out loud to her. He was begging his mom to let him stop reading. He just couldn't sit still and had tears in his eyes, because she wanted him to finish the book. Levi turned to me and said, " He is just like I use to be...He needs Vision Therapy!" I could see the fustration on the poor moms face and I knew that I couldn't walk away from them without telling them about Vision Therapy. I went over and told her that her son reminded me very much of my son. I shared with her the struggles we had. She told me that her son was just stubborn and just didn't want to read. I asked her how she knew that. She then told me that some days he can read and some days he just doesn't want to. I told her that Levi was like that too. I then turned to her precious little boy and asked him if he ever saw double letters or moving letters. He said, "Yes, but that isn't my problem. It is the pain behind my eyes that is my problem". I said, " It really hurts bad doesn't it? I explained to his mom that some days his eyes aren't as stressed and he can read better. I shared with her our story and gave her some websites to check out. She was very interested and told me she was going to check it out. I am so thankful that I went to Barnes and Noble and was able to talk with that mom. That darling little boy might get the help he needs to overcome his struggle with reading, because his mom was willing to listen to a complete stranger. If you're this mom and are reading this blog...I would love for you to keep us posted on your son's results! Tootles everyone! Annette Siver

Why Vision Therapy? Reasons are very clear!

I just read Annette's blog today.  I am blogging for the first time today. 

I did not really hesitate to agree to this blogging idea, when asked, because my son had such a positive experience with his Vision Therapy.  His therapist, Denise, was so helpful and gave him vision therapy activities that definitely matched both his needs and personality/interests perfectly. 

That was 2 years ago, and Jared continues to do well in school and sports.  Before his vision therapy, Jared had problems with his hand-eye coordination and his peripheral vision.  When he read, he used his finger to keep his place.  After vision therapy, these difficulties are all but non-existent. 

What brought us to Dr. Fortenbacher?  Our family optometrist, Dr. Brenda Smoke did a regular eye examination on Jared, and could not find a prescription that would give him 20/20 vision. He had a problem called amblyopia or lazy eye. She recommended Dr. Fortenbacher for vision therapy.  After Jared's vision therapy, at his next exam with Dr. Smoke, Jared received an accurate prescription and is now happily wearing contacts.

Joan Langmeyer

Dyslexic...Not Anymore!

Do you know someone that has dyslexia? Well, if you do, I hope you will share my son's story with them.Several years ago I was a home school Mom that was struggling to teach my son to read. No matter what I tried it didn't seem to work. He would wiggle and squirm and just wouldn't sit still, even when I threatened him with punishment. He had problems reading some of the simplest of words for example,on, of, if, was, saw. I wondered how in the world can he mess up such easy words... Sometimes he would add letters that weren't even in the word. I was truly baffled. I realized this problem was bigger then I could handle by myself. I decided to take him to Sylvan Learning Center to be tested. It took him over five hours to do a test that was supposed to take about two hours. When I came back for the consolation they informed me that my son was "severely dyslexic" . They went on to explain that they could help him a little by teaching him some tricks that seem to work with other dyslexic people. But...Levi would never be like other kids. I was devastated to say the least. I went to my car and just cried and asked God to help me know what steps to take next. I felt helpless. God impressed me to get his vision checked.

My friend told me about Wow Vision and suggested that I take my son in to be tested. I decided I didn't have anything to lose by taking him in, but everything to gain. We found out that he had something called "Convergence Insufficiency". (I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to explain what that means, but you can go to www.wowvision.net and read all about it.) But in a nutshell...His eyes were not teaming and working together. Dr. Fortenbacher told us that with about three months of Vision Therapy that he should be able to improve drastically in his reading skills. We decided to give it a go. It felt great to have hope again. Slowly we started seeing improvements. No longer was our son struggling to read those small words. It has been two years since he finished his Vision Therapy.

Now he is reading 6/7 grade level and doing great! What is even more astonishing is that he is reading for FUN! Was the time and money spent on Vision Therapy worth it? YOU BET !

Annette Siver