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Is there anywhere else you can take your son to be evaluated??? what state are you in??? is there an early intervention program in your school district or county???
I'm just not sure about this doctor for you, I think you should look into a second opinion......does this doctor specialize in ASD? just his responses seem a little off to me.
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We live in Iowa. I might have to go them because our ins will not cover anyone after age 5 with these services.
Thank you all for your input! I will look into the websites. Yes we are a little concerned about his testing that would be req. He had a made a point to tell me that he does not think that giving a 7 year old Aspergers DX is the right thing and needs to do all the testing. He stated he had some little professor signs, and all the eye stuff however, an hour is not long enough! I will review all the websites and also in the meantime make an appointment with someone else for a 2nd opinion.
No, I've never been referred to an optomologist , and noone has ever suggested to me that my childs inability to hold eye contact could be due to a medical condition.
I'm sure there are excersises you can engage in that could help your son in this area but i would question a referral to an eye doctor.
just my opinion
My oldest son also has difficulty maintainting eye contact. He tends to look off to the side of whomever he is speaking with. He underwent a very comprehensive evaluation at our Children's Hospital, and no one ever suggested that he see an optomologist.
I've seen posts by adult Aspies who indicated they divert their eyes because they don't want to, in essense, be rude and invade the space of the other person. My impression is it's just socially uncomforatable for them to look someone directly in the eyes.
Is there are medical condition they want to rule out with your son? If there is something an optomologist could do to help improve eye contact, I would be interrested in learning about it.
Hi, somebody told me recently that there is an eye condition which is often misdiagnosed as ADHD as it leads to inattention with or without hyperactivity. Recently I have been noticing that my son has a problem focusing on something closer to his face and one of his eyes appear as not well coordinated, a bit cross eyed for a want of better word. Since inattention is common to many ASD kids, and my son is hyperactive on top of it, I ran a search. I found this out.
http://www.add-adhd.org/convergence_insufficiency.html
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn6886
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/18956.php
Needless to say we are taking him to an opthamologist soon. Don't know if he cooperates enough to get tested for this convergence thing. I would really be interested to know if this indeed is the same problem and can be fixed/improved with excercises. Beats putting him on meds anytime.
Sorry if this is not tied to your son's case. Does he have problems attending?
Mary
Is there anywhere else you can take your son to be evaluated??? what state are you in??? is there an early intervention program in your school district or county???
I'm just not sure about this doctor for you, I think you should look into a second opinion......does this doctor specialize in ASD? just his responses seem a little off to me.
Look up Vision Therapy for ADD and Autism. There are a lot ofHere is a recent thread about vision therapy:
http://www.autism-pdd.net/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=17293&am p;KW=vision+therapy
I also found this article about it:
http://www.cbs8.com/features/healthcast/story.php?id=7551
I'm not sure what to think. Probably the best thing to do is ask lots of questions.
Well, I've never been diagnosed actually. So, I can't blame them on that one. But the opthalmologist who finally diagnosed my ds said she could tell that I had it as well. She also didn't think that my dd had it, but said she would have to examine her more fully to make sure - which of course would require an appointment. She said mine wasn't obvious, but if you know what you're looking for, she could tell. I can tell as well because when I try to look at my eyes when putting in my contacts, my right eye always turns out.Pinkquinn --
To get your child's vision checked, I assume you would start by mentioning it to the pediatrician. My son got referred to first an eye doctor (who mostly checked for near and far sightedness) and then to an orthoptist (who specializes in eye convergence and tracking issues).
A lot of kids with reading problems actually have vision problems, so it's smart to get this checked out.
Good luck.
I have some experience with this.
My son got vision testing as part of the evaluation leading to his autism diagnosis. It was a nightmare to get him to cooperate with reading the symbols on the eye chart at his 4 year well-child check-up, but it went fine at the regular optometrist a year later, partly because they use a machine that can tell if the eyes are farsighted or nearsighted.
He also did a stereogram card, which is a hologram picture of a couple everyday objects that you can only see easily if your eyes work well together. We went to an orthoptist when my son had iffy results with the stereogram, others go to a developmental optometrist.
The orthoptist could tell a lot about my son's vision even though he didn't cooperate very well with her exercises. The orthoptist said his eyes are pointing two slightly different directions, but right now it's still in the normal range.
We'll be getting him re-checked regularly, because he might have inherited my husband eye condition -- he has eyes that point in two slightly different directions (not noticeable when you look at him). He needs prisms in his glasses to fix this. For some people it causes problems with reading ability but for my husband it just results in headaches if he doesn't wear his glasses. He needs glasses only for the prisms, not for near- or far-sightedness.
I have been thinking that my dd is not seeing things the way we do-who would test her for that? She cant seem to visually identify letters and numbers no matter how much repetition, her retention is very low (she has a normal IQ)
She seems to not orient to pointing well (although she can catch a ball) and she cant focus for long visually-her eyes dart alot and her retention for numbers and letters is well......not good
where do I start?
Thanks to WiMom for posting my post - now I don't have to search for it because that's what I was going to do.
The one eye pointing a slightly different direction does sound like it might be strabismus and he should get evaluated by an opthalmologist for it. However, my ds was evaluated (at the Mayo Clinic no less!) at age 9 months for this issue - which I was pretty sure he had, and I was told there was no issue. Now at age 6 we are being told there IS an issue. GRRRR!!!!
Snoopywoman -- It's always possible that someone dropped the ball when your son was 9 months, but maybe the condition worsened with time. When we went to the orthoptist, she told us that we would need have to our son's eyes evaluated periodically -- our son's eyes were pointing in two slightly different directions but still within the normal range for the time being but perhaps not in the future.
Norway Mom - I think it was they dropped the ball. I could tell his eye was doing the same thing mine always has. It's not terribly noticeable, but they didn't really even look at that - they just did a normal vision test and said they just didn't see what I saw...Snoopywoman -- How maddening! Given a history of it in the family, they should have been extra vigilant and at least recommended monitoring the situation. Sorry to hear they dropped the ball.