The entire staff and I want to extend a special congratulations to DS, our newest vision therapy graduate! She has worked very hard and has done extremely well. She should be quite proud of herself!
DS was referred by her excellent tutor who I have known for several years and is skilled at suspecting vision problems when they are interfering with learning activities like reading and writing. When DS came in our office, she was struggling with words that appeared to run together while reading, skipping lines while reading and generally avoiding activities like homework. Her COVD Quality of Life Survey score was 39, indicating that visual problems were likely causing her symptoms. (A lower score is better, and anything over 20 is raises suspicion of a vision problem).
DS's symptoms were explained by her convergence insufficiency (difficulty turning eyes inward when looking up close), accommodative insufficiency (difficulty focusing) and pursuit dysfunction (difficulty with tracking).
Now after completing vision therapy, all of that has changed! As her mom said, "It is like she's a different child. She understands more of her reading because of her eyes tracking better. Homework is not a struggle anymore. In fact, she has it done before she gets home most of the time. "
And what I love to hear from parents: "She is more excited about reading than ever before!"
Recently report cards came out, and her mom was so excited at the improvement that she emailed us a copy. There has been improvement not just in reading but improvement in many areas (especially in science) as you can see in this little section of the grade report:
I'm quite happy that through vision therapy, DS has overcome her visual problems, and this is reflected in her COVD Quality of Life score that dropped from 39 to 8! As DS lives quite a long distance from our office, I'm sure they will not miss the weekly drive. But we will miss seeing her in the office! We are very proud of her. If she works as hard at everything else as she has in VT, we have no doubt she will succeed beyond her wildest dreams!
Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD
Bright Eyes Family Vision Care
Located in the Westchase area of Tampa.
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