“It was evident Memphis was having problems in preschool,” Nicole said. “He wasn’t progressing the same way the other two were, but at that time we thought he was just moving at his own pace and didn’t want to compare them.”

They noticed problems with his speech and had his ears tested. The Kauls found out he had fluid on his eardrums and wasn’t hearing very well. Memphis had surgery to relieve the fluid and his hearing improved but Nicole said the problems didn’t stop there.

“His speech was improving, but his handwriting was horrible,” she said. “Memphis is very soft-hearted and that made things worse. He would struggle and do things twice, if not three times, but he just couldn’t get it.”

By first grade Memphis’s teachers thought he might be dyslexic.

He was tested, diagnosed with dyslexia and put into a program to help him.

“In second grade, he wasn’t making any improvements,” Nicole said. “He was closely monitored and it was discovered he was memorizing what he was suppose to be doing. By chance we discovered that he could actually read better if you turned his books and papers upside down.”

Nicole started researching online for a program that could help her son as she was worried about his level of frustration and the fact that nothing seemed to be helping.

“It was very hard for him to see his brothers and other classmates doing well in school and he couldn’t figure out why he couldn’t do it,” she said. “By this time all of his tests were done orally. He did fine that way but if he had to read them or write something it was a mess.”

A teacher at Memphis’s school suggested Nicole look into vision therapy because she suspected Memphis was having tracking problems. Nicole happened upon a website that showed how someone with tracking problems might see a sentence.

“It was moving all over and jumping and I saw that and I thought, ‘If this is how Memphis sees things, no wonder it’s so hard for him,’” she said.

The Kauls contacted Vision Eye Care and Vision Therapy Center in Sioux Falls and had Memphis tested to see if vision therapy would be helpful.

“Dr. Angela Gulbranson, DO, tested him and he tested under 5% in most of the categories,” Nicole said. “A child his age without these problems would test in the 80-90% range. He was seeing things upside down and backwards and sometimes seeing two of things.”

Memphis started a 30-week vision therapy program that consisted of doing various daily exercises at home and visiting the therapy center in Sioux Falls once a week.

“Some of the exercises were physical like walking on a piece of tape with his feet turned in and then doing it with his feet turned out, others were about building up his eye and neck muscles,” Nicole said.

The exercises also worked on gross motor skills and fine motor skills, Nicole said. The therapy has not only helped him improve in school, it has helped his balance and coordination.

“Memphis was the last of the boys to learn to tie his shoes and they were always coming untied, he was also very shaky on his bike and had a real hard time catching and hitting the ball in baseball,” Nicole said. “All of these things have improved after vision therapy.”

Memphis, now a third grader, has improved drastically in school and has a lot more self-confidence, Nicole said.

“His reading comprehension is still a little behind but he’s getting closer to where he should be,” she said. “His handwriting has improved tremendously and he’s just happier all around.”

Although the therapy sessions were not cheap at about $100 per week, Nicole said it was definitely worth the extra expense.

Unfortunately, most vision and health insurance plans do not cover vision therapy.

“When I was looking into it I was worried about the cost, but you have to think of it the same as if my husband was in a car accident and needed physical therapy to walk. I would do whatever possible to make that happen. Reading and seeing correctly is just as important as walking,” she said. “We didn’t want Memphis to get to the point where he was so frustrated and upset with himself that he gave up on school.”

Dr. Roger Filips, O.D., F.A.A.O, said Nicole’s analogy about physical therapy is spot on.

“It is very similar to physical therapy for your visual system,” he said. “We treat eye tracking issues, convergence issues and eye movement issues. Your eye movements and tracking need to work efficiently to read since your eyes are skipping across the page.”

Filips of Filips Vision Source in Hartington, Neb., and Creighton, Neb., said many children who have these sorts of problems can’t accurately move their eyes across a page and tend to use their fingers to track words.

“They are skipping or re-reading words,” he said. “They just don’t have the coordination to do it accurately.”

Filips said he often does inservices at schools and tells the teachers that if they pick the one or two worst readers in their class those children most likely are in need of vision therapy.

“There are a lot of misdiagnosed reading problems,” he said. “A lot of times these kids are told they need to practice more or try harder, but if they are having these kinds of problems, practicing isn’t going to make a difference. You have to fix the underlying fundamental problem and treat that first.”

Filips said many children who get a yearly eye exam are not being screened for these types of visual problems.

“They have their exam and they have good vision or they need glasses and get corrective lenses, but glasses and 20/20 vision have nothing to do with the eye movements needed for reading,” he said.

At Filips Vision Source all school-age children who come in for a basic annual eye exam are given a screening to test tracking and eye movement abilities, Filips said.

“If they seem to have difficulties we bring them back for extensive testing, which is about a half-hour’s worth of testing five different areas,” he said. “From there we work on a treatment plan.”

Filips prefers to utilize a home therapy regimen where one parent acts as coach. The child and parent are assigned three tenminute sessions per day, starting before school during the school year. They return to Filips’ clinic for evaluation and new assignments once a week.

“Very few people who do vision therapy use a home regimen, most of them insist on doing in-office therapy,” he said. “But doing the therapy at home significantly reduces the cost. There are always really advanced cases that warrant in-office therapy but most people with eye movement issues can complete the therapy in about two months.”

Filips noted that it’s best to catch these types of issues around second grade because the child is mature enough to handle the therapy well but it’s still early enough that they haven’t gotten too far behind their classmates in school work, but vision therapy can help anyone at any age.

“I’ve had 80-year-olds who’ve had brain trauma from motor vehicle accidents and often times middle-aged people with grade school kids who complete the therapy then mention that they had the same problems when they went to school and I’ve then done the therapy with them,” he said.

Filips said children who could benefit from vision therapy are often misdiagnosed with dyslexia or Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD).

“There is really no good treatment for dyslexia and often any treatment will not work because that’s not the problem,” he said.

“If they are diagnosed with ADD, then you’re going down the drug path which doesn’t help either.”

Dr. Filips hasn’t always offered vision therapy at his clinics, but after he saw how much it helped his own wife, he trained to administer vision therapy.

“My wife had these problems in spades,” he said. “As a middleage person she was able get treatment and it has changed her life. It was then I decided to integrate it into our practice, too."

Filips and his wife, Ann, travel to opthamalogy and optometry conferences and classes and lecture about the reasons why more doctors should incorporate screening and vision therapy into their practices.

“She gives an inspiring, powerful testimonial about how she struggled in school and throughout her life thinking she just wasn’t smart enough,” he said. “I then talk about the therapy itself and the technical aspects.”

Ann gives a video testimonial on the Filips Vision Source web site (www.filipseyeclinic.com) talking about her childhood struggles and how much vision therapy has helped her.

In the video she says, “Reading was not fun or relaxing, I would have to read a page five times. If I pulled out a recipe card I would have to read it 10 times before I could even start cooking.”

When Ann was evaluated by a colleague of Dr. Filips at the age of 45, her comprehension level was that of a third grader and eye movements were that of a fifth grader. She completed six months of vision therapy and tested at a comprehension level of just under 12th grade when she finished.

“I can now read that page in a book once,” she said on the video. “I can read a recipe card one time. I made Dr. Filips promise he wouldn’t let these kids fall through the cracks.”