Dr Bryce Applebaum

[Anonymous]

Thinking of going to this practice for vision therapy for my 11yo DD who has some struggles with visual spatial issues. Seems like a huge financial and time commitment so I wanted to get feedback before signing her up.

[Anonymous]

For what it's worth, our kids' opthamologist (well known and trusted in the DC area) told us that vision therapy has little basis in evidence, but if we had the money to throw away it wouldn't hurt. Apparently there is little evidence for it's efficacy.

[Anonymous]

Not familiar with the doc, but about to wrap VT with our 13 yo—has made progress on their metrics but tough to see the difference in real world. Tried VT due to very low spatial scores / speed and dysgraphia, and neuropsych suggested trying. DC enjoys (somewhat) and likes the therapist he works with. VT had also been suggested (by a teacher) in 1st grade (by a teacher) but we did not pursue partially based on research and the opinion of an ophthalmologist.

[Anonymous]

Seems like a waste of money. I would just have the kid do activities that involve hand eye coordination.

[Anonymous]

Search for mentions in the forum. The one ethical guy in the area retired. Applebaum is not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not familiar with the doc, but about to wrap VT with our 13 yo—has made progress on their metrics but tough to see the difference in real world. Tried VT due to very low spatial scores / speed and dysgraphia, and neuropsych suggested trying. DC enjoys (somewhat) and likes the therapist he works with. VT had also been suggested (by a teacher) in 1st grade (by a teacher) but we did not pursue partially based on research and the opinion of an ophthalmologist.

NP. We had similar results for our 9yo. Tough to see a difference in the real world, but he had some vision issues that were corrected, even if not easily apparent.

It was being pushed as making a huge difference for some kids by a few folks we knew but opthamologist thought DC was borderline and could help but might not, and doc did warn us there are simpler ways to approach DCs vision issues. I think we hoped this would be the thing that solved all of DCs problems but that was foolish.

It's a lot of money and huge time commitment. We went to Applebaum. He was either a salesman or delusional about how life changing vision therapy would be for our child. But regardless, they exercises they do there are effective and should improve vision issues.

In a weird way I'm still glad we did it bc otherwise I would wonder if that was the root cause of my DCs problem forever, but if I had to redo it I'd pick a different doctor.

[Anonymous]

Our daughter benefited from vision therapy under Dr. Bryce Applebaum’s care. We went into the initial appointment skeptical, but after spending years in private tutoring for reading issues, VT was a desperate attempt to try and find anything to help her. After 4-6 VT appointments her eye tracking issues were completely resolved and she could read fluently. I was shocked and frankly pissed that no other healthcare professional or tutor had not suggested VT to us sooner. I sought out his care because my own gut instinct was telling me that her eyes were not tracking across the page correctly when reading. It also helped to resolve persistent motion sickness and clumsiness. I will admit that I thought the recommended number of therapy appointments were excessive. I think after the first or second “re-check/re-evaluation”, he stated that she needed a total of 36 appointments, but by the 18th therapy appointment, I was convinced she was healed. So, we stopped and have never regretted it. I suspect there are a lot of kids with eye issues that have been misdiagnosed with learning disabilities and could benefit from VT.