r/BinocularVision • u/Toodlydeedoo • 6d ago
Symptoms Five year old- OMD
My son has been diagnosed with BVD by a neuro optometrist. He is five years old and his main dysfunction is ocular motor. He will be getting vision therapy and occupational therapy
I’m hopeful to hear success stories in children. His optometrist sort of acts like he’s going to be fixed right up with ot and vision therapy. Insurance will be covering both so we are very grateful for that.
- He has some symptoms that are interesting and I’m unsure if they are related or not.
He goes the typical catching a call with his face and struggling with eye contact but these are a bit more unique
- he holds the hands of the person he is talking to. Almost to hold them still while he speaks to them.
-he looks at children with his head tilted when he approaches them.
- he cups hand binoculars around his eyes occasionally at soccer practice
- he gets close to kids faces when he talks to them and almost looks like he is mimicking their faces- the mimicking isn’t all the time but if he’s overstimulated
- he becomes very interested in younger kids movement. If a kid has big gross motor movement or is running around he watches and giggles- of course because he’s an impulsive five year old he occasionally joins in.
- he jumps off high heights or asks me “is this too high”
- he bumps into people and falls a lot
- he stares at the sky occasionally when there is a lot of movement
- he has strong focus with auditory tasks and he is really good at art and can do it for longer periods. He struggles with ball sports and if large movements are happening while he is supposed to be focused it pulls his attention.
- he can tell me the spelling of words. Knows all his letter sounds. Asks me what certain combinations of letters spell from his head but hates reading a book himself. He absolutely loves being read to and can sit for hours.
- he almost seems adhd when around large groups. One on one and in small group settings he is calm. The more movement the more impulsive and more irritable he becomes. An example of this is at our local park if 2-3 kids are there he plays beautifully. If the homeschool group is there and there’s like 30+ kids he struggles major.
He will avoid, laugh in away that makes it impossible for him to interact (overstimulated)
-when he was three at his half day preschool he would run around the room during the dance party on fridays. The teacher would get so confused and upset because he loves to dance and move.. watching other kids causes overstimulation.
He is not easily overstimulated by loud noises. Has zero other sensory behaviors.
Everyone who knows him says he doesn’t act like he’s on the spectrum but I will say some of his vision issues seem to mimicking adhd or autism type behaviors.
1
u/SeriousOccasion822 6d ago
While I can’t speak to all of these, many of them do sound like a young child naturally compensating to get through the day with BVD. Especially the ones pertaining to eyes. Alot of kids (and adults) will rest their head on their arm when reading or writing to see better. I’m not an expert on adhd, autism, or BVD but I believe there is some cross over between them. Or potential for misdiagnosis. (Please correct me if I’m wrong!)
I got BVD issues after a concussion, so not my whole life, but I did notice something recently that made me think. After months of a nonstop headache and dizziness (literally nonstop, just change in severity) i went on a long bike ride. On the bike ride, my headache and dizziness/overstimulation went away. While this could be do to blood flow/endorphins, what was strange was that the moment we would stop for water it would all come back immediately.
I started to feel like because I was moving so quickly, my brain anticipated the environment or something. Like I was moving around the world, not the world moving around me.
Not sure if there’s weight to it, but your kid running around during dance time made me think of it! Could also just be a kid overstimulated and getting out energy and being a kid. Idk.
If you look around the sub Reddit you’ll see people talk about grocery store syndrome. Which is basically visually induced dizziness, overstimulation, or other symptoms triggered by visually overwhelming environments.
Good luck and hope he gets some relief!