Excluded from class because of whiteboard glare/ Help and ideas please!!!!

[supermum98]

My ds is constantly coming out of class because of glare from whiteboard. Him and I getting very distressed about it. Taking laptop into class could help to download stuff, but wireless connection at school patchy. Doesn't want to wear dark glasses as makes him look different. Visual opthalmology suggested, but haven't got money at moment and nearest therapist long way away. Not sure if research proves it works. Any ideas? All getting rather desperate about it. ds. in year 7.

Can you suggest to the school that they use a cream/yellow background, or possibly a very pale blue, instead of white for work with documents or where they are writing on the board? Also, they might be persuaded to set the projector to a lower brightness setting - this would probably make it necessary to use blinds when the outside light was very bright, so they might not be too keen, but it would save them money because the bulb would last longer (and they cost up to about £200 each)

When you can afford it you should look into doing vision therapy at a behaviour optometrist. Vision therapy does cure a number of vision problems and we have had huge success with it. It is like occupational therapy for the eyes. But I don't know what prob your DS has or if vision therapy would help him.

It is easy and free for his teacher to change the background colour of the doc they are looking at on the whiteboard to a diff pale colour.

Also changing his seat in class is free and easy.

So make an appt with the SENCO to make those free things happen immediately.

My DSs vision problems are slightly diff but he needs to be directly in front of the board, and the board needs to not be white for him to read it. Since they have finally made these changes he has made huge progress.

But I think moose mamas DS has the same vision problems you are describing. See if she has any advice......

Adapting the background colour of the board is a basic first step and very easy to do. Teacher can change it back with minimum fuss if s/he wants to for the next class.

My DS had this as the glare made the screen look blurry/ wobbly for him. For him a correction of +0.5 on glasses (clear not coloured- yet) has made a huge difference - along with vision therapy.

I have the details of an NHS Behavioural Optometrist in Essex if you are in the South East. Apparently lots of universities are doing this as well - there was a thread a few days ago re whether behavioural optometrists are quacks that might be worth a read

Thanks everyone, rusty bear, great idea about bulb setting as ds has said part of problem comes from projector behind. Will talk to SENCO about experimenting with different coloured backgrounds, good idea too. Yellow is painful to his eyes and potentially sets off epilepsy, but other colours may be better than white. He has a peripheral field defect and visual processing diffiiculties so benefits from enlarged print, does wear glasses as visual acuity fine. Indigobell SENCO has just moved my ds to back of class and ds says no better, was at front before. Why does your ds have to sit at front? I'm not happy with my ds moving to back as can't see why it would be better. Ben1 if you can give me details of BO in Essex that would be gr8 and how do I get hold of Moosemamma?

Dr Annette Grounds
VMT Clinic, CPOC Building,Essex County Hospital, CO3 3NB
01206 744669

If you get the voicemail, leave a message and they will call you back. They will send you a pack that you can take to your GP so that he can do you a Choose and Book appointment. I only had to wait six weeks for an appointment which I don't think is too bad.