Balls flying around

Oops!

We had some excitement a few weeks ago that I forgot to update people on!....It turns out good, I promise ;-)

A few weeks ago Ria made this odd comment at bedtime..."Dad, why does it look like there are balls flying at me?"

Parent thought process:
(1)  Hmm, odd visual artifact/experience.
(2)  Ria has progressive myopia, very near sighted, I can tell her prescription is getting worse lately as she's moving closer to the TV.
(3)  Very near sighted folks are at greater risk for retinal detachments.....which shows up as odd visual artifacts.
(4)  EEEEEEEK!!!
(5)  Let's make an ophthalmologist appointment tomorrow.....EEEEK!!!!

At the ophthalmologist office we find out that her eyes are healthy as can be.  The thing that is changing is.....
SHE IS DEVELOPING 3D VISION!!!!!

Whee!!!

Background - Ria has been wearing bifocals since she turned 3 specifically because she tends towards going crosseyed (accomodative esotropia).  Basically, the images from the 2 eyes are not perfectly overlapping, so she sees slightly double all the time, and when she really wants to focus well (while reading, usually), one eye will turn WAAAY in so that she will see only 1 set of words in front of her, making it easier to read.  In her situation, the bifocals trick her eyes into getting a reasonable overlap of the images from her eyes so she doesn't feel a need to go crosseyed so much.  The hope was, of course, that eventually her brain would figure out these overlapping (or near overlapping) images and fuse them into one 3D image.  Very often what happens instead is that the brain just learns to ignore the input from one eye and pay attention only to the other so that it doesn't experience the double vision (this is what William does, one eye is his "near things" eye, one is his "far things" eye, and the 2 never work together).

There are two 3D tests.  For both the kid puts on 3D glasses and looks at a hologram.
1st test:  If you have no 3D you see a picture of wierd blobs.  If you have weak 3D you see one image, if you have stronger 3D you see a different image.
2nd test:  There is an array of 9 sets of dots that you have to decide which one is popping out at you.  Sets 1-3 are "gimmes", since you can see which dot is different even without the glasses.  Set 4 requires only very weak 3D vision....onwards up to set 9 that requires a strong 3D vision to discern which is popping out.

In previous visits, Ria could get to #4 on the 2nd test (very very weak 3D), and on the 1st test she could tell something was kind of coming out of the page, but couldn't ever name it -- the image wasn't strong enough to be able to label.

In this visit, first she stared at the picture for a while.  She could tell something was there.  The office tech (this part of the visit is without the actual ophthalmologist) encouraged her to just "stare harder", and then she could label the 1st level image.  The office tech encouraged her more "stare right here, really hard", and she was able to label the 2nd level image!  Then they went to the dots....it took a lot of hard concentration, but she got to.....*****7*****!!!!!

So...we're guessing this new 3D vision isn't constant, its kind of going in and out little bits all day long.  And the "balls flying at my face" is some visual artifact caused by the 3D going in and out.  This also explains why she suddenly started getting carsick for the 1st time this past summer.

We went from absolutely terrified about Ria's eyes to utterly thrilled in less than 24 hours.....what a rollercoaster life is, eh?

Life being happy ;-)

Looked at the blog today, and realized that I'd never posted some really cool pics of the kids that my mom took when she was here back in October.

This one is a nifty one of Iain at a climbing structure at Gilroy Gardens...I brightened it up a bit so you can see his face better.  

Here's a nice one of Iain at his walkathon, caught off guard:

And one with the both of them, again at Gilroy Gardens.  Yep, she's a weed.  Sometimes I think she'll be 7 feet tall when she's done!

Ria's aide started in the classroom in late February, and the change has been tremendous.  Ria is able to finish all her "independent" work at her desk, and her anxiety has dropped dramatically (as she no longer needs to fear the desk work) making her more participatory through the whole school day.  Her aide is also helping Ria at recess (we have a social goal in the IEP) to develop games that she can play with the other kids, so she is no longer mostly by herself on the playground - in fact, there is always a crowd with her!

Iain has been doing programming in Khan Academy online, and is having a lot of fun with it.  He even gave a talk to his class one Friday afternoon to show them how to do/learn programming in it (they use Khan Academy in the classroom), and ran a little lunch time programming session with interested kids to help them get started.  hee hee!  It is so fun to watch him start to develop away from "little kid" ;-).

Life is good -- and the sun is out!!  Happy days!