Finding Focus: A Journey Through Overcoming Vision Challenges

For the previous story: A Young Girl with Attention Deficit Heads to Afterschool Care

As the school year came to an end, a parent-teacher meeting was held at Michali's school. During my meeting with the teacher, we discussed some challenges Michali faced, including her difficulty in copying from the board. Michali finds it hard to copy what she sees.

The teacher refused to see this difficulty as part of an attention deficit disorder. "In my experience," she said, "students who struggle to copy often have an issue with vision focus. I suggest getting it checked."

I left the meeting with mixed feelings. What was the connection? I wondered. Where did this vision focus issue come from? Michali struggles to concentrate, what does that have to do with her eyes? Moreover, she’s under regular eye check-ups and wears glasses...

A few days later, Tsila and Atara, the wonderful Cogfan therapists, decided to have a conversation with the teacher to achieve some collaboration on specific support for Michali, like continuous praise for her successes, and more. They also tried to obtain some relief for the amount of board copying required of her. The teacher willingly shared her insights on Michali's strengths and weaknesses but wouldn't agree on this specific relief. "She should have her vision focus checked," she advised them as well.

So, I had it checked. After paying a significant fee and waiting several weeks, I reached an appointment with a specialist in this field. Inside, I felt torn. On the one hand, maybe the teacher was right, and we missed a simple physical difficulty? On the other hand, no way, she sees perfectly! The teacher might just be evading accommodations that would complicate her classroom management.

Less than an hour later, I received the diagnosis: Michali had a vision focus problem. The doctor also added, "Don’t be quick to label her with attention deficit disorder. Focus issues can be misleading." He explained that with focus difficulties, instead of immediately recognizing something she looks at, Michali first sees the object, and only then understands what it is. This is a very confusing situation, slowing her down and complicating many tasks. That's why copying takes her so long—it involves many eye movements and constant refocus. It definitely sounds like something that could mimic attention deficit, though it is purely a vision issue.

I was amazed. Could it be she never had attention deficit disorder? Was it all a vision focus issue?
It didn’t sound logical to me. But... it didn't seem illogical either.

Either way, we were given a home exercise program from the doctor, along with 3D glasses for the treatment (the other kids were excited about the new "toy" and enjoyed watching the array of 3D images), under the doctor’s regular supervision. We received the program just in time for the summer break. For a moment, I envisioned an alternate reality where Michali practices over the break and enters second grade as a completely typical child, without challenges or issues.

*

Michali began practicing. It was not easy for her. It was boring, exhausting, and frustrating—every session ended with a score, and she continued to see low marks again and again. However, gradually, over time, her scores began to improve. During follow-up visits with the doctor, we adjusted the exercises to match her progress, and by the summer's end, he updated us that the practice period was over. Michali could continue practicing for fun if she wanted, but the focus problem was resolved, thank Hashem.
I tested it by asking her to copy a specific passage. A few months earlier, such a task would have taken her over an hour. Now, she copied it in less than half an hour. Baruch Hashem!

So, what's the consensus, you ask, maybe she truly doesn’t have attention deficit disorder?
Well, not exactly.

Because my older daughter, at the same age, would copy that same passage in ten minutes.
And because the challenge of copying wasn't the only trait of attention deficit I saw in Michali, of course. The improvement in focus greatly helped her, but it didn't resolve her organizational difficulties, her extreme need for physical stability, her sensory sensitivity, her time blindness, or her social situation. It eased one difficulty. And that's a lot.
What did I learn from all this? I asked myself as we began preparing for the new school year.

I learned that attention deficit disorder exists, though I might have preferred discovering it’s a smaller, more solvable issue.

I learned, again, to trust my instincts. Because it’s still hard for Michali to copy from the board, she’s still slower than all her friends, and as right as the teacher was in her diagnosis, I was also right, and Michali could have benefitted from that accommodation.
However, I also learned that attention deficit is not the explanation for every problem, challenge, or question. I learned that it’s sometimes easy to fall back on "she has attention deficit"—and because of that, miss other problems. Ones that might be relatively easy to solve. I realized that it’s worthwhile to listen to opinions from outsiders. Sometimes they’ll say annoying things, irrelevant things, and simply not understand the struggle. But sometimes their outside perspective can offer different insights. Thank you, teacher. You alleviated a significant part of Michali’s challenge. And along the way, she also got some cool 3D glasses...

Have an attention disorder at home? Feel free to share your thoughts.