Now that we know Mikaere’s eyesight is worse than we originally thought (See the post titled ‘To my son I’m a giant blob‘) we can introduce things to help.
Now that it’s dark in the afternoons, I set up light shows for him. We were gifted this amazing black carpet/fibre optic amazing whatsit that has little lights on a black carpet that change colour (<3 Alexander x). We also have a set of fibre optic cables that came from a charity. Sometimes he’s interested, sometimes he’s not. We were told by his vision therapist that if he looks at a anything, that’s a win.
We’re also trying to introduce single bright toys against dark backgrounds in the hope that it helps. Portage bought around this great moving wooden duck that waddles very very slowly down a slope. I’d hoped he track it, and he kind of did the first time. We showed him a large light tube at vision, where the light moves down the tube, super slow. Again, tracked it, kind of, the first time.
Now he won’t. Is it because he can’t see it? Is it because he’s not interested? We wrangled a dark backdrop up to work as contrast to be be honest, I don’t know what’s working and what’s not.
I struggle with this, because I know vision, focusing and following is the basis of most physical developmental movement. So many movements start with looking, with motivation. And if he can’t see and he can’t hold and doesn’t have the motivation to see, which then moves into a lack of reaching or touching, what does that mean for him?
We’ve already seen that his little left roll is not a neurotypical roll, because he’s not starting it with his arms outstretched, as he reaches for something. He tucks his arms in, to keep them out of his way and leads with his knees instead. A bottom up rotation, instead of a top down.
So, working on vision. At least the lights are pretty.
