Look at the Bright Side
Growing an Architect lays out my thoughts on why a child who grows up with a problem with binocular vision skills might just be predisposed to become an architect. It certainly appears, if you read enough websites, that children who struggle with reading have a tendency, if they succeed in getting through school, to become architects, draftsmen, or to work in some similar capacity.
The key is that they get through school successfully enough that they want to go on to college or vocational school to hone skills that they have already unconsciously developed. I write this in the hope that reading it will encourage you, as a parent of a struggling reader, to look on the bright side and realize that your child is developing some visual skills that other children are not. Knowing this might enable you to look on his future with optimism, even though the past few years might have been a real struggle for you and your child.
It’s still vitally important that you address your child’s potential vision problems, but I believe it is also true that the compensating skills he’s been forced to build might be exceptionally useful in the future. So with that in mind, here are my thoughts on Growing an Architect.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:02 am
Hi Rod
This is a very interesting post. I have been working with a grade 2 boy for the past year. Altho he has made very good progress, he still reads quite slowly and with some hesitancy. I had encouraged his mother to take him for a developmental eye exam for many months, giving her the best explanation for possible problems he may be having with his binocular vision. As her husband’s father is a retired optometrist living in Montreal, she finally made an appointment with a colleague who supposedly works with children who have reading issues. From what I gather, this optometrist told her that her son does have a slight convergence problem, but that he does not recommend any treatment. I assume that he believes the boy will out grow it, but I’m not sure if that was actually mentioned. What the mom did report was that this optometrist said, as one eye usually becomes dominant, his vision would eventually improve. For some reason, that did not make sense to me, as I suspect that what he may be saying is that the vision from the “weaker” eye would be suppressed and that his reading problems would be addressed in that way. I could be way off track here. But I suspect that his diagnosis & possible prognosis aren’t the ones he needs. In the meantime, the boy skips small words and even lines when he reads. But the mom now believes that this is all normal & could be addressed by finger tracking. As I do not feel that I’m in a position to argue with the father-in-law’s colleague’s diagnosis, I believe it best to wrap up the program soon & instruct the mom that this child will remain a slow reader whose comprehension will most likely suffer as no-one I know wants to track with a finger forever. But maybe I’m wrong & his vision problems will improve. What do you think?
Marie
July 24th, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Hi Marie,
I think you have an excellent understanding of the entire situation. I would ask the mother to ask the optometrist who saw her son whether he ever refers to vision therapy. If he doesn’t, she should ask why. It’s very likely that he doesn’t believe in the efficacy of vision therapy, or he simply doesn’t want to refer patients to a potential competitor. So, if a convergence problem is actually bad enough to show up on the basic testing that he does, he adopts a “wait and see” attitude, which, as you’ve indicated, will sometimes work if you wait long enough. In the meantime, the child suffers terribly in school, of course.
I wouldn’t give up trying to convince the mother. Get her to check out whether the optometrist refers to vision therapy, and if he doesn’t, then give her some information on how she can learn more about it. Also, she might read “The Vision Piece” on the sidebar here to get an understanding of the issues involved among competing optometrists.
Good Luck.
Rod
July 25th, 2007 at 9:34 am
Hi Rod
I will certainly pass on the pieces that you have just written, plus the one on “competition”. But I think this optometrist may work at McGill University & therefore has the mom believing that his word is The Word on the topic. He did tell her that he does not offer certain vision therapy because they have not proved effective. Which ones I do not know. However, I will ask her if she has a copy of the report that I could see. Unfortunately I believe that I have hit a brick wall here. When I first suggested vision issues in the child, the mom told me that she had problems too as a child & now reads or sees out of one eye. That admission flabergasted me, but I guess she feels that this is OK for her & OK for her son. What equally flabergasts me is that the optometrists involved with this family accept these conditions with out offering any correction. Perhaps I do not understand the whole story, either of the family, the diagnosis, & this whole issue of convergence.
Marie
July 25th, 2007 at 11:56 am
Hi Marie,
First, regarding the effectiveness of vision therapy, here is a January 2005 article on an excellent study (actually just a small portion of a larger study still being conducted, I believe) on the effectiveness of vision therapy in alleviating symptoms of convergence insufficiency.
Article on Convergence Insufficiency
Also, here is the link to the PDF file of the article so that you can print out the entire study. Pay particular attention to the list of symptoms and the results they obtained.
PDF of the Article
I am in the middle of reading the article the second time through and intend to post these links and my comments on a new Page in the Guide on the sidebar, but you sound like you could use them now, and it might be a week or so before I get it posted.
I would also suggest that you refer the mother to my website and have her read the first several pages of the Guide. If nothing else, she should gain some understanding of the situation, and maybe she’ll start to question whether her OD is, indeed, “the Word.”
Hope some of this helps you get through to her.
Rod
July 25th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
Hi Rod
Thanks for the info. I can access the article from the website, but not from the PDF version which only lists 3 pages of contributors to either research or the article. Should I try another way to download this file? I’m working on an iMac. Thanks.
Marie
July 25th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Hi Marie,
I fixed the link to the PDF, I think. If it doesn’t work now, go to the article itself and look for PDF on the right-hand sidebar and click it, as that should work.
Rod
July 25th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
Thanks Rod, that seems to work.
M