John and Ginny – Natalie’s Grandparents

My wife and I could not figure out why our granddaughter Natalie could not read near the end of her first grade year. Finally, Natalie told us that “the words were moving around on the page and she was unable to see them.” That’s when we began searching in a ninety-mile radius of our home in Coldwater, Michigan. We got lucky, we found Dr. Myers and the Indiana Vision Development Center.
Upon the initial evaluation we were told that Natalie was suffering from “Convergence Insufficiency.” We had never heard of it so we researched it and found that Natalie had all the earmarks of this problem. We signed up for a one-year program of once a week one hour therapy sessions at the office and five days a week sessions with Natalie at home for approximately 20-30 minutes each.
We were so lucky when Natalie was assigned to Ms. Tina, who is one of Dr. Myers’ therapists. Tina was fantastic and led us through our year-long odyssey from not being able to focus at all to a happy and confident little girl who believes she can do anything. The work that Tina did was amazing in its ability to change the entire way that Natalie was able to look at the words on a page. Everything is now working together, including her eyes, her brain, and her motor senses. She has come so far in a year it is incredible.
Natalie worked so hard and Ms. Tina kept challenging her. Every time she completed a goal there was another hill to climb. Natalie kept dutifully climbing that mountain until today when she officially graduated from the program. She was so happy it made us cry.
We know that there is still a lot of work for Natalie to do, but the tools that Ms. Tina and the IVDC taught to her will always be with her and help her to be the very best that she can be.