Vision Therapist

Yesterday we met with the vision therapist, Mary Ellen. It was a really interesting meeting and we are becoming more familiar with yet another intricacy of the brain. Taylor's vision is difficult to assess. Dr. Cowan was concerned that the way Taylor responds to visual cues (toys, etc.) was sluggish or inefficient. Since the opthamologist has confirmed that her eyeballs are fine and her cortex (part of the brain that controls vision) is normal on her MRI, the pathway between her eyeball and cortex is inefficient - a likely result of her missing corpus callosum. Dr. Cowan said it's too early to know if she has immature vision, or abnormal - another "wait and see" game. This can be called cortical vision impairment or delayed maturation of the eyes. The severity of Taylor's visual condition is unknown.

The vision therapist is supposed to help us help Taylor improve her vision. Mary Ellen was very nice and was very complimentary about Taylor. She was really pleased with how alert and social (smiling at parents, stranger awareness, babbling, etc) Taylor is and said those were very good signs in her experience. She explained that her job is to help Taylor track objects more robustly and efficiently. We want her to look at objects when they're in her hands (she rarely does now) and shift her gaze when different people are speaking (she does this at times now).

One of the most interesting things was realizing that Taylor is sensitive to light. We had never realized this. Mary Ellen remarked about how bright our family room is (lots and lots of windows and french doors) and asked if Taylor seemed to mind. We hadn't noticed. After a few exercises with Taylor - trying to get her to track different toys with her eyes, follow a flashlight, etc. - we moved upstairs to Taylor's room, shut her blinds and turned off her light. Her room was lit, but much darker than our family room. She tracked the objects much, much better with the different lighting.

Mary Ellen worked on assessing Taylor using the Carolina Curriculum and basically tried to get Taylor to focus on a variety of objects - different colors, shapes, textures, sounds, etc. We learned that more contrast across objects (in a fairly dark room and shine a flashlight on a toy) really helps Taylor respond. She also responds well to red, yellow, and green toys. It also works well to use a black screen behind a toy to reduce clutter. All of these techniques are new tools we will use to help Taylor see better.

We will meet with Mary Ellen every other week for an hour. She was very nice and we learned a lot. This is an area we'll also explore more to see if there are other treatments we should consider. Mary Ellen left us with a few positive thoughts - she thinks Taylor shows good potential because she is alert and social. We're fortunate that Taylor really responds well to faces and voices. Mary Ellen described that some children with this condition don't like looking at faces because they are too complex - this would be really hard. We're fortunate that we know without a doubt that Taylor knows, and loves, her family.