Glasses

[FanjoForTheMincePies]

Found out today that DD has to have glasses as she is so long sighted in her left eye (+6!!) that she isn't using it.

If we don't get her using it she could lose the sight in it, so it's an additional worry!

I was wondering, does anyone know how only using one eye would be affecting her general interaction, perception etc? I am just hopeful that IF she will wear the glasses we might see general improvement.

Also, has anyone had to get a child with ASD or similar used to wearing glasses? I feel she will just rip them off her face.

We use tinted lenses - slight tint so can be used indoors. DS seems to find them calming. There is new research on tinted glasses helping with challenging behaviours.

I would try to set yourself up to suceed - timing putting the glasses on with a distraction so she doesnt get into the habit of instantly resisting. And so that she leaves them on for even a while at first so she actually realises she can see better.

Distractions we use are the putting them on as going out the door, as mentioned above.

And putting them "so you can see X" as something interesting starts on the tv/ happens close by. Often by the time the interesting distraction stops there has been a chance for DS to forget he's wearing them.

Best of luck.

Been trying today but she is quite resistant so backing off a little

Tried putting them on outside thinking she would like seeing the outside world but she still threw them off.

Any chance she would wear them more in school?

It sounds stressful for you - maybe give yourself a bit of a break, then come back to it and think about the strategies on this thread and elsewhere, and whats most likely to work for your child.

The strap will be of some help - she wont get them off quite so easily. DS wears glasses with a strap and we are soon going to try ones that are more like children's athletic ones (wont move about so much).

It is hard- I speak as someone whose child threw his new pair in a river

She wore them for a good couple of minutes tonight , bribed by a chocolate biscuit!

Am hoping she will wear them by time she gets back to nursery on 11th, as I can't see them having the time or inclination i have to work on it.

DS1 wears them, his are also tinted. He loves them. His sight is only +3 but he says the world looks horrible (apparently it spins!) when he doesn't have them on.

At the start, I put them on and set his timer, and gradually increased the time until he started to forget to take them off again.

Be warned though, a year in, we've lost/ broken more than 10 pairs!

Which opticians are you using Fanjo?

There are breakage issues with glasses for SN kids. The whole "voucher" system means that, in theory, you get unlimited NHS repairs. But each time the opticians repair the glasses, they have to claim the costs back and the NHS is fairly arsey about repeated claims. Although the optician can push through this with determined form filling, some of them don't like making the effort or don't know how. So we had to change opticians till we found a sympathetic one - our local specsavers now knows DD1 well and have been very good.

My other tip (not now, obv, but the next time you get a pair) is go fork out the extra for the flexi frames (whole frame, not just hinges) and to ask for curl sides. Baby-style curl sides can be retro-fitted to most glasses, certainly any of the wire flexi frames. Eventually, repairs mean new parts or new frames and you need another NHS voucher or pay yourself: it has turned out cheaper for us to fork out for the flexi frames which can often just be bent back with pliers (get the optician to do this, then they will feel obliged to replace for free when it eventually breaks mid-repair!). But just having the flexi frames means we are in the opticians far less. Two or three times a term, rather than two or three times a week.

Third tip... research those frames online. The specsavers shop order system has different items to the online one. So the shop don't believe that DD1's glasses exist. I had to phone up the Specsavers main supply warehouse to find out how the shop could order the online frames and then talk the shop through it last time. The model seems to have changed now (and got more expensive ) but effectively DD1 has these things with curl sides on.

vision Express.

We tried the flexi frames but DD took them off and started bending them into hideous shapes straight away!!

Have ordered a magnetic retainer to try to keep them on, can't post links on iPad but it's called the "inconspecuous"!

I think the vision express ones are even more flexi than ours; not had a chance to try them as we had to switch from VE quite early on. Technically they only have to honour the free repairs thing on 100% NHS funded frames; their manager kindly said that if we got more expensive frames they would put repairs through for free. So we bought the more expensive frames and then they switched manager and the new one went back on it. . But lol at the thought of your DD making pretzels with her glasses.

DD1 would find a way of getting the "inconspecuous" off, half-strangling herself in the process. And then eat it. Looks good though!