We’re on the vision section of the workshop right now and I missed a bit of the beginning due to the last entry. However, it did tie in to what I was writing. The presenter was talking about the difference between sight and vision. Sight is whether you need glasses or not, your physical ability to see things accurately. Vision is your ability to process and interpret the information your eyes are providing. They are very different areas. A person’s sight can be corrected through glasses or contacts, but if they still have vision problems then problems may persist.
Some vision skills that children need are visual efficiency, visual analysis/perception and integration. Visual efficiency is comprised of eye movements, ey teaming, and accommodation (focusing). Visual analysis is comprised of form perception, visual closure, sequential memory, and laterality. Integration is comprised of eye-hand coordination and auditory-visual integration.
Children with eye movement problems have difficulty maintaining eye contact during a conversation, they lose their place when reading and they often turn their head while reading. Their eyes just don’t move smoothly.
This one is interesting. Typical kindergarten activity. A few shapes on a piece of paper with dotted outlines around their edges. The student is supposed to cut the shapes out along the lines. The worksheet that we have though, has two sets of dotted lines, spaced about a quarter of an inche apart. The idea is that this is what a student with a vision problem might be seeing. Which dotted line should they cut along? I know I’ve seen students in this exact situation who instead of cutting on the dotted line, they cut just outside of it all the way around, so the shape has a border of sorts. Naturally, I’ve always assumed that it was a fine motor issue. However, it could very easily be a vision problem instead. That’s definitely something to keep in mind. Fine motor problems could quite possibly be vision problems.
Side thought: This stuff is pretty intense. Auditory issues, brain development issues, reflex issues, vision issues, all of which should have developed a certain way during the child’s formative years, but for one reason or another might not have. These people have acquired quite a collection of these issues. I wonder how many have yet to be discovered? Just for a completely outrageous example, what if it is discovered that the liver actually aids in logical thought. Children who don’t probably develop their liver before age 7 will have issues with logical thought from then on out until they get these things addressed. Exercises would need to be created to develop your liver to a specific point. I know it’s a terrible example, but you see what I mean, right? I wonder just how complete these things are and just how much is being ignored because we don’t even know that we need to address it yet.
One more side thought: During lunch I asked someone who worked for the program just how long we are supposed to do these exercises for. I don’t mean, what duration of time should we do them in a given day, week or month. What I mean is, once a child develops a skill to a specific optimal level, is there a reason to continue the exercises? Quite simply, the answer was no. It’s like riding a bike, once you’ve acquired the skill you have it for life. Most of these should have been acquired naturally before age seven. This is to address any that weren’t acquired or that the child didn’t learn fully. Once they’ve got it, they don’t need to do it anymore.