Anonymous wrote:Our vision therapy was I think $400? Dr. Smithson in Reston.

I don’t have experience with vision therapy for the issues you mentioned but I saw Dr. Smithson for vision therapy for a concussion. I don’t remember the exact price but nowhere near what you mentioned. I did computer exercises every day at home. It helped me! I don’t know if this is the same type of therapy but check Dr. Smithson out.

GL to you; we have similar experience being shocked at the costs of suggested therapies for different issues. It is beyond ridiculous. What I’ve heard is people in other areas can find doctors who take insurance where providers in our area just expect out of pocket payments and people have enough money to do that. Not us.

I know nothing about vision therapy, but as a research scientist, I would focus on training/therapies that are proven to work, instead of sinking money into unproven methods.

When my ex-preemie needed intense therapy, I observed the sessions of pt, ot and speech and reinforced them every day in lessons of my own. Perhaps vision therapy necessitates specialized equipment, and you can’t replicate everything at home, but maximizing therapy sessions on very little money means learning how to teach one’s own child. I also tutor/ coach him relentlessly on his many issues stemming from ADHD, dysgraphia, motor disability and Asperger’s social problems.

It’s basically another full time job, but many of us can’t afford to outsource these things.

Yup. Everyone’s got their hands out to take money from SN kids and their families. It’s sickening really.

Vision therapy was one of the few things I paid for. I did a lot of the other therapies myself. It's not rocket science.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I cannot begin to tell you how much money we've wasted on BULL SHIT "therapies" - wishing on a hope and a dream that something was going to help DS.

I've become so jaded and so skeptical over the years because of this, not to mention much lighter in the wallet area.

Funny, I don't remember posting in this thread and yet, SAME.

it's a shame so many of us have this experience, and feel this way. I'm the PP who the above statement. I kick myself every day for trusting some of the people I trusted.

I have spent over $100,000 on hospital stays, therapy of all types and medicine. We could not afford to have another child.

My neighbors took their daughter someplace in McLean for vision therapy that takes insurance.

You need to discuss the merits of vision therapy with a pediatric ophthalmologist. We have the history of strabismus and the ongoing struggles of dyslexia, and we, too, were advised by one of my child’s teachers to consider vision therapy. Our pediatric Ophthalmologist did a good job explaining to us why our child wasn’t a good candidate for it (it has to do with how her eyes successfully work together or something along those lines). I do continue to marvel at the frequency with which strabismus and dyslexia seem to show up together. There has to be something to that, right???

Anonymous wrote:I cannot begin to tell you how much money we've wasted on BULL SHIT "therapies" - wishing on a hope and a dream that something was going to help DS.

I've become so jaded and so skeptical over the years because of this, not to mention much lighter in the wallet area.

Funny, I don't remember posting in this thread and yet, SAME.

Anonymous wrote:

We did the home one and it worked

What do you mean "it worked"
If you don't mind, please elaborate in the greatest of detail possible. How exactly can you tell "it worked"?

I would search this forum as there have been several posts about this. I have posted in detail as have others. DC was complaining about not being able to read line-by-line (he used an index card to keep his place on the page), DC had vision therapy, and DC made remarkable progress reading that was too fast to be maturation. The dyslexia persists, but DC is able to read down a page now, even though the decoding issues are still there. If you knew me, you would know that I am the last person to believe any therapy or medical intervention works as I am very hippie and anti-Western medicine, but yes, I have no doubt that for what was going on with my DC's tracking, the vision therapy fixed it.

We did the home one and it worked

What do you mean "it worked"
If you don't mind, please elaborate in the greatest of detail possible. How exactly can you tell "it worked"?

I cannot begin to tell you how much money we've wasted on BULL SHIT "therapies" - wishing on a hope and a dream that something was going to help DS.

I've become so jaded and so skeptical over the years because of this, not to mention much lighter in the wallet area.

I would go back to the psychologist and ask what the VT is for. Is it for the strabismus? If so, I would think insurance would cover it. How is a psychologist determining that VT will help? What condition are they diagnosing that they are proposing the VT will treat?

If the psychologist is saying it's for dyslexia, I would discount everything the psychologist says. VT is not a treatment for dyslexia.

There are two types of vision therapy. One you do everything in the office, and one you do mostly at home on your computer. We did the home one and it worked.

Our vision therapy was I think $400? Dr. Smithson in Reston.