Meaghan's Story
(How vision disorders can present as seemingly unrelated symptoms)
Written by Marcialyn McCarthy, M.A.Ed.
Meaghan was born in 1985, our second child.
I was then a special education teacher with the Tacoma Public Schools. My husband, Michael, was also a teacher.
As an infant, our son had been quiet and easy to handle. But Meaghan was screaming and fussy. As a toddler, she seemed always on the edge of a tantrum. We have now spent a lot of time in Australia and people there would say she was "stroppy".
She was also clumsy and accident prone. She didn’t walk, but ran with a stumble-like gait, leaning forward. When she descended stairs, she would take baby steps with both feet on one step before she would try the next. And she was still doing this when she was three or four years old.
She was also very heavy-footed and would literally stomp around. And she didn’t like anything on her feet. I would put shoes on her only to again find her barefoot a few minutes later.
Obviously something was wrong, but what? Nothing we had learned as teachers or otherwise seemed to provide the answer. Neither did the myriad of respected professionals we consulted.
When she was three years old, I took her to the local optometrist. After a lengthy examination, he found nothing wrong.
I also took her to an occupational therapist at the school where I worked. The occupational therapist thought that perhaps something was wrong with Meaghan’s hip and suggested a kinesiologist.
The kinesiologist was also a naturopathic physician. He diagnosed a probable milk allergy and a disorder of the muscular-skeletal system. He also referred me to a podiatrist who gave us orthotics. I can’t say whether they helped or not.
In 1991, Meaghan started school. Her teachers told me that she was "stellar" in math, but in reading, she was just "coming along".
Michael and I then started to hear about about a new therapy that helps children with autism learn to speak, "auditory integration training" or "AIT". Moreover, we soon found ourselves formally trained and providing AIT throughout the United States, as well as in Australia and New Zealand.
With travel thus becoming an integral part of our lives, we decided to homeschool the children. It was then that Meaghan’s educational issues became apparent.
We found that she was reading well below grade level. She also had an odd "one-sided" approach to homework. For example, she would only do math problems on the right side of the page, leaving those on the left untouched. Her explanation: "Oh, I didn’t see them." At first I was annoyed, but then it happened so often that I had to think that something was really wrong.
With AIT, we found ourselves working with specialists beyond those typically involved with education. These specialists included a developmental optometrist from Atlanta, Georgia. "Developmental optometrists" treat vision disorders and related learning disabilities with a process called vision therapy ("eye exercises"). This Atlanta optometrist thought that Meaghan might have a vision disorder. Moreover, he referred us to Dr. Nancy Torgerson, another developmental optometrist in Lynnwood, Washington.
After extensive testing, Dr. Torgerson told us that Meaghan’s eyes did not work well together, and that she was "suppressing" her left eye. Suppressing means that the eye is open, but that the brain isn’t using it—as if the eye were actually closed. I had heard of suppression in the context of autistic children, but not otherwise.
Dr. Torgerson’s report also noted that Meaghan’s depth perception was compromised, that she was farsighted, and that she had difficulty "tracking" (the ability to follow an object or sentence smoothly and accurately with both eyes).
Now we had an explanation for Meaghan’s behaviors. Her clumsiness and awkward gait could be explained by her lack of depth perception— her inability to tell where she was in space. She didn’t like to wear shoes because her bare feet gave her feedback on the location of the floor. And the left eye suppression explained why she only did math problems on the right side of the page.
Dr. Torgerson suggested vision therapy and Meaghan began a program with her office. I soon observed that Meaghan’s reading was improving. Moreover, Meaghan would comment that things "looked different". She also announced that she could now "see a house", explaining that previously she had only been able to see one in a photograph (that her visual field had not been wide enough to see a whole house at once).
Today, Meaghan is back in school, working at or above grade level. Her course work includes an advanced humanities class. She also regularly appears in community theater productions, including as a dancing pirate in Peter Pan—no longer our heavy-footed little girl. We are very proud of her.
Vision therapy certainly made a difference for Meaghan. Unfortunately, I find that there continues to be a lack of information regarding both vision therapy and developmental optometry. For example, I recently attended a three day education conference in which there were no presentations on either topic. Moreover, I then spoke with many educators, who like Michael and myself five years ago, were uninformed or misinformed regarding the benefits of vision therapy.
It is my hope that this situation will soon change.
In closing, I would like to thank everyone who helped us with Meaghan and her seemingly unexplainable symptoms. I would also like to thank Meaghan for letting me tell her story .
Marcialyn McCarthy, M.A.Ed.
Postscript:
Marcialyn McCarthy, M.A.Ed. and Michael McCarthy, M.Sc.Phc. continue to provide auditory integration training throughout the United States and in Australia and New Zealand. They also offer it locally through Autism/ADD Resources, Inc., with offices in Federal Way and on Vashon Island.
Dr. Torgerson continues to provide vision therapy in Lynnwood at the Alderwood Vision Therapy Center.