Major Milestone

Eye tracking is one of many things they assess at the Brain Balance centers. I was quite surprised when we got the results of the eye tracking for both Dylan and Preston. Preston's eye tracking was practically non-existent and Dylan's eyes weren't much better. Even the results of the reading test where they track their eye movement while they read were much worse than I thought. Dylan is actually a really good reader so to see the computer results of the infrared scan of his eyes while reading was surprising. They didn't track from left to right and then down to the left. They kept backtracking a bit and then skipped back halfway before moving down a line and finally over to the left to start reading on the next line.

As part of the home exercises for Brain Balance, Dylan and Preston do eye exercises three times a day. Preston's eyes lose focus quickly and I have to remind him to track the item he is following quite often. Dylan can focus much better, but still loses his tracking here and there. The thing they both struggle with is alignment. Don't ask me all the specifics, but basically they need to be able to go cross-eyed and see double when tracking an item from far away in towards their nose. I was SHOCKED when I realized neither of my boys could cross their eyes. Like at all.  I thought everyone could do that. It was so weird especially watching Dylan try and having neither eye move much at all. I tried it on Marissa (my 4 year old) and she can do it perfectly. The other strange thing is that Dylan was convinced he was tracking it well. He did not believe me when I told him he wasn't following the pencil.  We have worked on it three times a day, six days a week since August 25 (our official start date). A few weeks into the program, Dylan's right eye (the one that corresponds to his left brain - his stronger hemisphere) started tracking the item better during alignment. Then 2-3 weeks ago, I actually let Dylan cover his right eye and just track with his left eye so he could try to feel what it should be doing. He could track it when the right eye was covered. So once in awhile before we started, we warmed up with just his left eye tracking. After that his left eye started moving a little bit during alignment. It wasn't tracking it correctly, but it was moving. And sometimes the eyes were working together, although they were bouncing from side to side and up and down trying to follow the pencil.  

This morning my husband was working on morning exercises with the boys and yelled out, "You did it right! Hey Hon, Dylan just did the eye exercises!" I thought it was awesome, but probably a one-time thing showing his eyes were getting stronger and he was making some progress. He did it again and sure enough, Dylan followed. I had to go see for myself! Even with me standing there as a bit of a distraction, he could track the item (the piece of chalk Marcos was holding). Let's just say, there was much jumping around and tears of joy this morning. And Dylan (who often complains about Brain Balance and the diet, screen time restrictions, and home exercises) told me he was glad he was doing Brain Balance and could tell it was helping him. I kept worrying that he wouldn't be able to cross his eyes again, but both this afternoon and this evening, he crossed his eyes during exercises. I'm sure there is always a chance he could regress while another part of his brain is developing (we've witnessed that before) but I'm confident this is for real and was a MAJOR MILESTONE for Dylan today. Yay!

 I managed to get a couple pictures of his eyes. I sure wish I had video of them before so you could really SEE the difference. It's a HUGE transformation in ability! At first his eyes barely moved. A few weeks later, one eye tracked correctly but the other held still. A couple weeks later, they both started moving but they were ALL OVER THE PLACE (seriously picture the little ball in a pin ball machine bouncing here, there and everywhere with no rhyme or reason). And finally crossing both eyes and tracking the item from start to finish.  I'm not sure I can even attempt to convey the emotion we felt. Overjoyed! Ecstatic! Grateful! Overwhelmed!  It's absolutely AMAZING!!