Re: NACD ? Anyone use pleoptics? What if child does not cooperate?

April 11, 2008

Dana,

We did pleoptics for about 3 months and I never had such issues.... but then

Mark is older and knew that he needed it.

Check your equipment. Is the flashlight the right size? Are you ensuring that

the penny shadow completely covers the macula of the eye? It sounds almost as

though you are not getting in there close enough so that the penny covers the

entire inside of the eye. But he is definately being stimulated..... so maybe

that is a good thing. I would do more then email.... I would put a call into

Alison and get her take on what is going on.

You will find that your child does get cranky after a while (try doing therapy

for 11 years....) Therapy is therapy is therapy. We try to disguise it as

playtime but they soon 'sniff' it out and figure out our plan! Of course, with

Mark, though he will try to get out of it.... he is now better and so really is

motivated to finish it all off. I see him being done by the summer time if I

can keep my act together.... of course, I have been thwarted before in finishing

off dyspraxia! Pretty tough for 3 year olds to be motivated to get better! You

have to experience bullying in the school system for that kind of motivation! Of

course, the point is to heal your boys BEFORE so they never have to experience

that kind of pain. And, of course.... you have two to gang up on you and start

a revolution against poor mom! No fair....

Call Alison and get her advise.

Janice

[sPAM][ ] NACD ? Anyone use pleoptics? What if

child does not cooperate?

Question for NACD families. My two boys have been doing NACD for about a

month. At the beginning they loved all of their programs except for deep

pressure and fast walk. Now one boy is rolling his eyes all around during

pleoptics. I thought the purpose of that was the aim the light over the pupils.

Well his pupils are all over the place and he is pushing the flash light away.

What is up with that? What do I do? He is also being cranky with some of the

other programs. They say it has to be fun or don't do it. I plan to e-mail our

contact person but thought I would also get some hands on help from families

doing similar programs especially the pleoptics.

Thanks,

Dana

and Garrett, 3 years old SCD 1 1/2 years!!!!!

Celiac, ASD, Speech and Motor Apraxia, sensory processing disorder

__________________________________________________

April 12, 2008

Both my boys always LOVED their therapists. Dakota was upset when we

stopped therapy for him and asked why he couldn't go back.

(Tanner's still in therapy here and there at 11 -still likes it)

Also not all children with speech impairments are teased. We all

fear they will be of course -I know I did. I would have thought we

were just fortunate -but in speaking with many other " old timers "

most like me have kids that were mainstreamed and not teased -no more

than any other child that is.

And if you want to get a nonverbal apraxic child up to speed -the

best thing is to follow what has worked and is known to work. And

it's not just that NACD and pleoptics isn't used by any more than

just a handful (three parents here?) - if you search for pleoptics on

an advanced search to bring up anything about it without the word

NACD it's not clear how this helps an apraxic child unless they also

have some vision issue?

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient & ie=UTF-8 & rlz=1T4ADBS_enUS237US23\

8 & q=pleoptics+flashlight+%2dnacd

It's not like any of us has to look for extra therapy. We had Tanner

busy almost every day in therapy when he was three -but mainly

speech, occupational -and some alternatives like cranial sacral.

Lots were incorporated into his traditional therapy.

If your child is 3 and not wanting to go to therapy -even if it's

therapy that is known to be effective for apraxia- proceed with

caution. Apraxic children have a long road of known to be much

needed therapy in front of them -so you want them to be happy.

Especially at 3! Look for proven speech and occupational therapy

methods that have helped most of our children and seek out therapists

that know how to work with preschool children. If Tanner or Dakota

were in a bad mood -their therapists would reschedule the session.

Think that happened twice.

=====

April 12, 2008

,

Pleoptics is indeed used for a visual issue. It is not to do with dyspraxia but

it is used to retrain the eye and to stimulate central detail vision. For Mark

it was used because he was hyper-peripheral and tended to look where he was

going out of the sides of his eyes (using his peripheral vision rather than his

central detailed vision). As you can imagine, this resulted in many bumps to

the noggin, falls and trips as the boy was really not looking where he was

going. Peripheral vision is simply not as effective as central detail vision!

We stimulated his central detailed vision with pleoptics; did a crawling,

creeping, marching, skipping program to rewire some of those dyspraxic neural

pathways and 'ta da'..... better coordination overall and no more walking into

parked cars! He also stopped getting lost all of the time as well. This was

becoming a problem since he was 11 when we did those exercises. They worked

like a charm. When you have global dyspraxia, you need to look at all of the

senses and how they work together since this can be part of the problem.

So, yes, pleoptics is a specialized solution for a unique (but not uncommon)

problem. It is strictly related to vision. It does not have anything to do

with apraxia of speech.

Janice

Mother of Mark, 13

[sPAM]Re:[ ] NACD ? Anyone use pleoptics? What if