convergence insufficiency | Autism PDD

Anyone heard of this?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/11/health/11visi.html?_

WOW! Never heard of it, but I am going to look into it for ds...his pldest brother has mild ADHD and an eye condiiton callled esotropia(kind of like lazy eye but both eyes..bad descrition, but I am not a professional,lol!) and can not see in 3-D. It would not be unlikely, I would think, for eye problems to run in families. THanks Zayzer!Did not read the article, but used to do V.T. Convergence Insufficiency is absolutely the easiest eye order to treat. You get great results in as little as a month! It is also VERY VERY easy to diagnose C.I. and I am appalled if nobody picked it up on this kid. Other conditions such as esotropia are very difficult to treat and you often do not get optimal results.

You're Welcome.

I wanted to add my son recently had a dialated eye exam and the finger to the nose thing. The Dr. did not explaine what she was looking for and once I heard his vision was great I did not think to ask.

zayzer39343.4449884259Really interesting, thanks for posting it! I can't imagine that poor family--going through all the motions & the medications, only to find out 9 years later it's an eye disorder. Incredible the progress she made in such a short time. Thanks again for this info! You'd think it would have been caught earlier.I'm not sure if that's on the list of things the vision therapy people diagnosed, but I know he has tracking issues and amblyopia. I'm a little leery of some of the vision therapy people as they seem to think they are the "be-all and end-all". But, if ds has difficulties with learning to read this year in kindergarten - we will look into it. It's VERY expensive and most often not covered by insurance. Very frustrating!

My husband has it.

He wanted to be a CARTOGRAPHER! Of course, they would not hire him ...

Thanks for bringing this to everyone's attention.

My son was referred to an orthoptist for eye convergence issues. He had trouble passing the stereogram test during the regular eye exam, but we might not have gotten the referral if I hadn't mentioned that my husband has convergence issues.

Here's the whole story (please ignore the yellow highlighting).

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.

Norway Mom,

I was curious, Ignore me if I am being nosy, If you son avoided reading or writing or adhd dx. The article said that the children had avoided reading and writing and were sometimes dx as adhd or add.

Zayzer --

I'm a curious person myself, so I have a huge tolerance for other people's curiosity.

My son was slow to learn to read. He was resistant a long time and didn't even want to try, said it was "hard." He suddenly seemed to "get it" in the middle of third grade. It may have partly been due to convergence problems -- we do see him reading errors, jumping from one line to the next, and a need for larger typeface.

His handwriting is poor, spelling is guesswork, but I don't think it's related to his vision.

He has problems with attention probably due to auditory processing problems and trouble switching focus. The experts at least felt that he didn't have ADHD or ADD, but rather that his attentional problems were a result of his autism

My son is 6 and can only read enough to get his computer games going. He can't write at all. Or speak. Through all this I know that he is smart.

Its going to be a long road. But I feel he will learn to read in time. He also has symptoms of add and adhd but the dr. says he has neither.

Thank you for answering my question.

My son had eye surgery last year to correct srabismis and align his left eye. It did not change his ASD symptoms much but his eyes improved a lot and I did notice that he didn't hold things as close to his face as before.

Hopefully children who have trouble reading and writing will be checked for this. It would be a tragedy if something so easy to treat was left un-dx.