Does Vision Therapy Work - My Story

I knew absolutely nothing about vision therapy. I actually had never even heard of the terminology vision therapy. Why would you go to a vision therapist I asked myself? And how could this treatment possibly help my child?

If you think about it reading is a complex activity. Yet we very seldom ever think to look at what's going on behind the eyes of a child as the child is reading. What does it take to read? We really don't give it a thought to the child's ability to see correctly other than taking them to the eye doctor to see if they can see clearly. Most people think that having a good visual system is making sure you can see 20/20. When you think that your child isn't seeing correctly you take them to an optometrist to get a pair of glasses and you call it a day.

Before ever hearing about vision therapy I never even thought about how the eye actually works. But once I turned to the vision therapy world with my second child, I found a whole new appreciation for vision, how the eye works and how reading happens. 

My son was diagnosed in the third grade with learning disabilities. He could not read and he was far behind the other kids in his class.

When I was in one of Jonathan's disability classrooms I discovered a flyer where I saw Dr. Daniel was speaking. I went to the lecture and spoke to her directly. She was amazing and explained to me the seeing wasn't just 20/20. Shortly thereafter Jonathan became a patient at Dr. Daniel and Davis' office doing vision therapy. For the first time, I had hope and my son was starting to read. I was so thrilled with the results that I ended up becoming a vision therapist and working for them. I also worked for Rancho Santa Fe Optometry and then was hired by a private school to help their students. One of the students that I worked with was a patient of Dr. Hilliard's office in San Diego. 

I can honestly say that there are a lot of great doctors that are providing services like this. I am partial to Dr. Daniels and Dr. Davis's office probably because I spent the majority of my time there. And I saw many patients gain so much out of the program whether they were students or traumatic brain injuries, Whether they had low functioning or high-functioning learning problems. I even had the opportunity to work with a sniper in the military. One of my traumatic brain injury patients came in seeing double after a few visits, she left our office she was able to fuse both images together. 

To say the least, it was a very rewarding career. Even now I run into some of my patients and they still thank me. I love that. 

The only time that I didn't see a child improve dramatically was when the patient refuses to do their homework. To be quite honest it's not the easiest program and you do have to put in work. The work was well worth it. In my case, my son is now a doctor of dentistry. Where the school district told me he would graduate with no more than a sixth-grade education.

I can vouch for

• Dr. Dukes
• Dr. Daniels
• Dr. Christianson
• Dr. Hilliard

Just because I haven't met your doctor personally doesn't mean that they're not a great doctor.