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christie s · 06-05-2002, 12:37 PM

I am hoping somebody with dyslexia or that knows about dyslexics can help me. My 8 year old son was diagnosed with dyslexia in July of 2001. He plays little league baseball and this is his first year in kid-pitch. The previous years when the coaches threw the balls he could hit it every time at bat. This year he cannot hit the ball to save his life. He swings at the ball and misses, if the ball is low he will swing high and if it is high he swings low. He will swear the ball is in a total different place than where it actually was. He says it is hard for him to see the ball being thrown from the pitcher. I am trying to find out if anybody else with dyslexia has ever had this type of problem. He has had his eyes checked before and there is no problem in that area, although I am making him another appointment.

Please do not tell me that he may just not be any good at baseball, if that is the case then fine I have no problem, but every time he is up to bat he says the ball was not where it actually is. It is very frustrating when your kid has dyslexia and you are not sure what he actually sees.

[This message has been edited by christie s (edited 06-05-2002).]

Jay Tor · 06-05-2002, 01:29 PM

Don't have any direct experience with dyslexia but was wondering whether you've tried throwing your son a few pitches. Not only for practice, but to determine whether your son is unable to see in three dimensions at all, or whether his ability to perceive or 'place' a moving object in three dimensions is affected by distance, speed and/or duration of visually tracking the object. It could be that he has [or recently acquired] a visual or visual/spatial condition unrelated to his dyslexia.

Tried a search for online dyslexia support groups. No success; only useful item was this article on learning disabilities which lists several support groups. [They may have Web sites - didn't check.]
[url="http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/learndis.htm"]http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/learndis.htm[/url]

Suggest you also try the neuroscience and ophthamology branches of the NIH - depth perception, parallax, etc.

Good luck,
Jay

Dannyelle · 06-05-2002, 06:09 PM

Hi,
One of my children was diagnosed with dyslexia when he was in 2nd grade. He went to a center for treatment every week for about a year. He also played baseball and quit when they started pitching instead of using the pitching machine because he couldn't hit the ball. I got his eyes checked and found out that he had convergence insufficiency which is when the muscles of one eye are weak. He did eye exercises for 4 months to correct it and after that his reading and reading comprehension improved dramatically. Turned out that he didn't have dyslexia. It took him a while to catch up in school but he's fine now without any problems and is 16 years old.
Oh and by the way, I had had his vision checked before and they didn't check for the convergence insufficiency so it went undetected.
Dannyelle

Taratwo · 06-05-2002, 08:04 PM

Hi I'm sorry to hear about your son. What is dyslexia? Is that a learning disability? Does it impair your ability to learn? One of my close friends has dyslexia.

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