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Reprint of New Haven Register article "Learn to See" from 9/13/2004.

Learn to see
Sandi Kahn Shelton , Register Staff 09/13/2004
Benjamin Kresch of North Haven is like any bright, curious 9-year-old: He runs and jumps every chance he gets, talks perhaps a little too loud and has trouble keeping still.

But unlike most fourth-graders who simply need a lot of physical activity, Benjamin showed some other worrisome symptoms. Despite having a high IQ, he was, until recently, unable to process letters into words so that he could read; instead, he simply memorized letter groupings.

He tends to get too close to people’s faces when he talks to them, and cannot resist touching everything around him constantly. And when he walks down a corridor, he’s hunched over, looking intently at his feet.

"I first knew something was different about him when, at age 2 1/2, he climbed onto the roof of our house," says his mother, Dr. Sheila Alexander, an emergency room physician, who has recently quit her job so she can look out for Benjamin full time.

"Then, at 3, he jumped into the deep end of the swimming pool. After three half-hour lessons, he could swim the entire length of an Olympic-size pool. At the same time he could do all these things, though, I noticed that one of his eyes seemed not to be tracking, and although he could recognize letters, he would become almost violent when I tried to help him blend sounds to make words."

As he got older, Benjamin had more difficulties. Diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, he’s been asked to leave every summer camp he was enrolled in, and, in kindergarten, his self-esteem plummeted when he noticed that other children were learning to read while he could not.

For the last few months, however, Benjamin has been enrolled in a program called Learn to See run by the Padula Institute of Vision in Guilford. The program was begun in January by Dr. William Padula, an optometrist who has done lots of work serving children’s visual needs.

Some years ago, Padula realized that some children who have been diagnosed with learning disabilities actually have a problem with their visual systems. Specifically, he says, these children have no difficulty with the focal visual system; that is, they can beam their attention onto an object. But when it comes to their spatial vision — that process whereby the brain uses the peripheral vision to orient the body in space — some kids have trouble with eye alignment. As a result, Padula says, these kids are fidgety, hyperactive.

"It’s the body’s natural effort to kick in the motor system to stabilize the body," Padula says. "When we check the child’s focal vision — like on a typical eye test — the child may see perfectly. But in fact, what can be happening is that they’re not able to track. When I hold up a pencil in front of these kids and move it away from their eyes and ask them when it stops looking like two pencils, they’re surprised to hear that it is supposed to look like just one pencil."

Kids with these problems are physically unable to sit still in a classroom and try to concentrate, he says. "Their brains are trying to reorganize the spatial system for them, and that happens through speeding up their movements."

But there is help. Padula’s Learn to See program has taken on some other child-development experts, who are devising programs that will actually help children and their families overcome these problems.

Jacqueline Haines, former director of the Gesell Institute of Human Development, is now evaluating children’s developmental stages. Through testing, she sees what effect the visual disturbance has had on the child’s development, and makes recommendations to parents and teachers.

Nancy Martin, a marriage and family therapist who was trained at the Harvard Mind/Body Medical Institute, helps kids and families learn relaxation techniques that helps improve children’s self-esteem.

"What I hear most from these children is that they’re afraid," she says. "They think they’re stupid because they often can’t do what’s been expected of them in school. And they don’t understand why they can’t read or why they can’t sit still."

The unique thing about the program, Padula says, is that it offers solutions to both parents and teachers. "Hyperactivity is not a cause in itself. It’s a symptom. We can often treat it through special prisms for glasses, and with programs that the child and parents can work on at home."

Alexander says that Benjamin is just starting with the program, and already she’s seeing some improvement. "It doesn’t take him as long to settle down and work," she says.

"When he came for the evaluation, Dr. Padula put special glasses on him with prisms, and had him walk down the corridor. For the first time, he walked upright, swinging his arms, instead of looking down at his feet all hunched over."

Recently, Martin had him writing affirmations on a blackboard: "I am a good swimmer."

"He was so pleased to think of something he can do well," she says. "This is a stress-relief technique that will help him in school when he’s feeling bad. He needs to know he’s good at things."
 

For more information about Learn to See, call (203) 453-2222.

©New Haven Register 2004