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Behavioral Optometry BOAF
Volume1 Number1 2012
something like binoculars or an old-fashioned viewfinder. Jillian would use a pencil to trace a drawing while looking through this device, which immediately revealed if Jillian was suppressing her weak eye or not. The picture would be incomplete if she was only using one eye.
Little Bo Peep with no sheep
One of Jillian‘s favorite exercises involved the near-vision vectogram. In this exercise, images of storybook characters like Humpty Dumpty, Little Bo Peep, and Old King Cole are presented on transparencies. The vectogram has polarized lenses. The result is that when Jillian would look at the images and then tell the vision therapist, for example, that Humpty Dumpty‘s hat was missing or little Bo Peep had no sheep, the therapist knew that Jillian‘s brain was suppressing her right eye.
Jillian graduated from vision therapy fifteen months after she began, What an amazing trans- formation had taken place!
When she recently turned 11, we went to see her pediatrician for an annual physical. He was so pleased with how well Jillian was doing. He said he was glad that the ophthalmologist had been so helpful. I said, „He wasn‘t. We found vision ther- apy.“
That was, perhaps a little unfair to the oph- thalmologist. The eyeglasses and eye patching did help Jillian to make progress, but at that point Jil- lian was almost like a car with a good engine but poor steering. Jillian also needed the development that the vision therapist was able to help her ac- complish.
Jillian now wears one contact lens instead of glasses. She is doing so well in school and is much more aware of her surroundings. She loves riding her bike and scooter and I don‘t worry as much as I used to about her safety. It‘s nice to be on par with all mothers who worry about skinned knees and elbows instead of the gut-wrenching fear that she won‘t see a car until it is too late.
Years ago, we wondered why our purple-and- pink-pajama-wearing princess would be so dis- traught over wearing a pirate eye patch. Now we
know. It took a six-year roller coaster ride of good days and bad days to find answers. What a jour- ney it has been. Jillian‘s odyssey may have started with the letter P, but it has now reached the letter A. That is, with the exception of a B+ in math, all the A‘s she got on her last report card.
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Jillian works with her vision therapist, Lindsey Hebert, using the translid binocular interactor.
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*Webster‘s New World Medical Dictionary.
The author also welcomes visits to her web- site:
www.thejillianstory.com.
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