This week the director of the Toddler Program at the Western PA School for Blind Children came to do a vision eval on Goldie. She was here for almost 2 hours! Goldie and I were so wiped out afterward that we had to cancel speech that afternoon.
The eval confirmed some of what I knew, but taught me a lot that I didn't know. I knew her peripheral vision was low. She was able to tell me specifically that it takes Goldie a long time to see movement with her peripheral vision, but she picks up light faster. So, a dr using a light to test her wouldn't get truly accurate results.
I asked about how we can help Goldie become more interested in her toys. Her answer was basically that we are going to have to think out of the box and adapt her toys ourselves. Using a black marker to outline pictures in books or painting the pop-up figures on her toys so that they are more visually appealing to her were some suggestions. I have to admit after I heard her ideas I thought to myself "Oh, yeah. That is so obvious. Duh."
She left me a folder packed with information on Goldie's diagnosis and how we can adapt her environment to help her. I tried to link to the program in another post, but the next day they changed their website and now the page is gone. The new site doesn't even mention the Toddler Program, but I can tell you it is a free service for children living in Western PA with visual impairments. When school resumes in the fall they will send a team of therapists to do a more comprehensive evaluation.
5 comments:
happy you got some more info and ideas. hope you find that link again or that it works again!
That's great that you have this program. And what good ideas. I remember when Adam was really young and his therapists would give us ideas and I'd always think wow, that was so, obvious why didn't I think of that. Actually, this still does happen to me all the time :) It's great getting others idea's and suggestions. That's one of the reason's I love reading blogs.
That is great that she was able to give you some insight on how to adapt things for her. Hopefully, those things will spark new interests for her.
I'm glad that you've gotten some good input from this program!
Are you feeling any better this week?
It sounds like the visit was successful then. And dont' you love having the obvious pointed out to you? I've said that parenting these kids is like being new parents all over again. Someone has to teach us the basics. I hope the "obvious" solutions work with Goldie's toys.
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