Jessica's Success Story

“Our daughter Jessica has always struggled with reading. She was diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder at the age of 4. Children on the autism spectrum usually have a difficult time with language processing. Knowing that fact, we weren’t surprised that Jessica was learning to read at a slower pace than her peers.

In July of 2015, while at Jessica’s yearly eye exam, Dr. Fisher performed a test to measure Jessica’s ability to move her eyes together to maintain focus on an object (eye teaming). Eye teaming is the ability to use our eyes together to maintain single vision. Jessica failed.

Light bulbs began to go off so to speak. We had been assuming that all of Jessica’s struggles with reading were related to autism.

Dr. Fisher suggested that Jessica go to Vision Therapy. By the end of July 2015, Jessica had taken a Developmental Vision Exam. The results showed that she had a condition called Convergence Insufficiency.

Eye Teaming skills
Before Therapy – she failed, scoring way below the average percentile ranking
After Therapy – she improved so much that she scored the highest percentile possible
Tracking skills
Before Therapy – she scored in the 5th percentile
After Therapy – she scored in the 73rd percentile
Focusing skills
Before Therapy – she failed, scoring way below average
After Therapy – she scored in the average to above average range

Therapy began in August 2015. We visited Dr. Fisher twice a week through November. Starting December we changed to once a week until finishing up in March 2015.

Jessica started 6th grade in August and by the end of the school year she had moved up almost 3 reading grade levels. We see her picking up a book to read just for fun, which she never did before. She has had less ‘tantrums’ in class and had to take fewer sensory breaks. She received a certificate for academic honors by maintaining a 3.7-3.9 G.P.A. throughout the school year. We feel that the Vision Therapy played a huge roll in her major progress!

Dr. Fisher was amazing with Jessica! Always professional yet we could see how much she cares for her patients. On several occasions Dr. Fisher went above and beyond what was expected. After a couple of months of therapy, Jessica started to struggle, not wanting to come to therapy or do her homework. Her progress was slowing down and we were worried she might even start to regress. In order to get Jessica refocused and interested in therapy again, Dr. Fisher decided to surf the internet for pictures of My Little Pony and Monster High characters. During her personal time, she printed the pictures, laminated them and cut them out. She then incorporated the characters into Jessica’s therapy sessions. Jessica began to enjoy herself again and made great progress. It would have been so easy for Dr. Fisher to get frustrated when Jessica was acting out and refusing to participate in therapy. She could have chosen to say, “I can’t help her if she is going to act out.” or “Until she is able to act appropriately, there is nothing I can do.” We really appreciate her willingness to ‘think outside the box’ and her determination to help Jessica be successful!!”