OT assessment

Cam is just loving the summer weather, and anything to do with water, splashing, kicking, throwing, etc. The fussy little man is also suddenly eating fruit - yay! The other photos are of Cam looking at his visual therapy powerpoint presentation that my Mom put together for him (stars, bouncing balls, buzzing bees, spotty dotty ladbugs, etc that he can follow on the screen - amazing! Email me if you want a copy: dalene.reyburn@gmail.com); Cam and Granny in the gardens at Prinshof this morning; and his OT session.

This morning he went for an occupational therapy assessment at Prinshof School (http://www.prinshof.co.za/ ). He was assessed by Elsa, an OT who works with blind and VI children everyday. Once we removed some of the balls from the room, Cam was able to focus… For parents of blind and VI kids, I’m copying below the notes we made at the session. The simplest and most practical advice was Elsa’s ‘I CAN SEE’ mnemonic – illumination, contrast and size. (I’ve made it ‘I CAN SEE PERFECTLY’, and the P is for prayer.)

Notes:

Need to work on Cam's recognition of detail

NB to develop near vision now – for academic work later. Introducing contact lenses for far vision / glasses for near vision, now, not necessarily a good idea – too distracting for the brain (e.g. like introducing a magnifier to a child still learning letters and sentence structure). Needs to develop further his detail recognition (close)

Social development fine

Gross motor fine

Still just loves balls…

Ok with the pegs in holes – interested but not too good at this. Did better with putting shapes in wooden puzzle

Keep practising peripheral vision

Books – keep it simple – one image on a page as opposed to a scene with a tree, house, bus, etc – he won’t be able to distinguish things

I CAN SEE – illumination / contrast / size

Illumination: natural lighting best (daylight). Don’t have a light behind him or over his shoulder – head casts a shadow. Light should come from side or front. Desk lamp not a good idea – too much glare.
Contrast: Yellow and white are not good colours for background (table) – use a light-absorbent colour like black, dark red, etc. otherwise the yellow, particularly, distracts him from what you’re trying to get him to see. Good contrasts to use: yellow on black, etc. Could use black pen on yellow paper.
Size: bigger not always better. He has a field defect because one eye is weaker than the other so if object is too big he can’t see the whole. Rather use a smaller object with thick black around it. Good font to use: Arial Black