Hi. New to the forum so I hope this is in the right place!!
Briefly my son had a diagnosis of high functioning ASD when he was 7, although 'investigations' were going on since he was 4. He's now 10 and we are in the process of securing a Statement for him before he progresses to secondary school.
As part of the recommendations following Ed. Psych's last observations it was suggested that my son have an ophthalmology assessment as 'sight' appears to be one area of sensory difficulty for him. This ranges from him looking very closely at screens (despite having better than 20/20 vision!!), to being unable to judge whether traffic is coming towards or going away. One main concern they have is that he is unable to organise writing on a page or track the words successfully when he is writing,(despite being an above average reader!!) he is therefore making little or no progress in subjects which need written recording (although a recent laptop purchase may help with this).
My doctor was happy to refer us on the Ed psych's advice and we went along for the assessment last week. After a rather traumatic range of tests (he was very brave though) I was given the impression that I really needn't have bothered going as there was no reason to think he had any difficulties at all and really I was wasting my (their?) time as none of their tests would be likely to shed any light on the issues.
On sharing this with a paediatrician we see for enuresis she suggested that there is actually lots of current research into the link between Autism/sensory difficulties and vision and perhaps a different ophthalmologist might be more 'clued in'. She'd heard that there are ophthalmologists in Rugby (I live in Warwickshire) that have a keen interest in the link, but she only heard about them rather than knowing exactly who they are!
I suppose what I really want to know is anyone had any similar experiences or had these types of difficulty investigated? Is there any research that I might be able to look at to at least give me an idea of what to tell the ophthalmologist to look for (if I manage to get a re-referral) or does anyone know of theses fabled ophthalmologists in Rugby??
Any advice would be gatefully received!
