Back in November I mentioned that Simon was diagnosed with esophoria, which is a condition where the eyes look more inward than they should. The result, as you can imagine, is that they have issues focusing on things accurately. The diagnostic result of this at the time showed all kinds of problems. His eye tracking would constantly back track over words that he was reading, and the ability to even copy and write text was severely impaired.
The ophthalmologist referred him to a specialist that does therapy for this kind of thing. Fortunately, this is almost entirely done by software and at-home exercises, and he's been doing those on a fairly consistent basis for the last nine months. There are some specific measurements that show progress on this. The speed at which he copies text is probably the most striking one. Before he started the therapy, he copied text at the speed of an 8-year-old. Now, he does it at the speed of a 13-year-old, which is what he is. That's staggering.
At this point, we have to wonder what this will mean in terms of school. Things like taking notes or copying things from the screen or board were slow and he absolutely hated doing it. School started this week, so it's too early to tell. My hope though is that this thing alone could change the way he approaches school work. Admittedly, I may be projecting naive optimism.
I still think it's a crazy good catch by the eye doctor last year. The therapy cost was not trivial, but here's hoping it makes a difference.
No comments yet.