Our son, Ben, completed Vision Therapy with Mrs. Pam last February. Shortly after Christmas Break, this year, he was beaming as he handed me the attached note from his teacher, Ms. Jenny. His pride and her note were truly the best Christmas gift!
It brings tears to my eyes to reflect on what Ben has accomplished with the help of some very dedicated, competent and caring individuals. For Ms. Jenny, his wonderful teacher at Montessori, to Dr. Christenson, to Mrs. Pam and everyone at Christenson Vision Care, we are thankful. You are counted in our blessings every day!! Since completing his Vision Therapy last February, we have watched Ben’s struggles and frustration turn into accomplishment and pride. He absolutely beams when he reads successfully and his understandable notion of “I can’t read that”, has faded away. It took a long time to overcome this mental hurdle, and it’s so heartbreaking to think about the magnitude of the struggle that put it there. What was once an everyday occurrence, I have not heard, “Mom, can you read this for me?”, in a very long time. No matter how big the task he now has the confidence and the skills to dive in and does so without hesitation. A year earlier, he would not even have tried.
As we learned more about the reality of what Ben was seeing, I am continually amazed that he was able to learn to read as well as he did. Children have amazing abilities to compensate, overcome and make do. We are just so incredibly blessed and thankful that this is no longer the case for Ben. He no longer struggles, in fact he seems to be thriving with this new skills! His confidence has stretched much further than just reading. He catches a baseball with more confidence, throws a football with more accuracy and hits a golf ball more consistently. He is just a more confident person. Any parent that has watched their child master something they have struggled with, knows what a joy that is. A parent that has watched some very special people give their child new skills to begin to master such fundamental tasks as reading and gain confidence in all aspects of his life, knows that is a special gift to be truly thankful for. There will never be enough words to convey our gratitude, but please know that your work is appreciated every day. We get to watch our son focus on being an eight year old boy, not worry that he can’t keep up. Thank you!
Although we are thrilled to have graduated from vision therapy, we miss our visits! Never have I met someone that could make such serious work look like such serious fun. Pam has a true gift and we are so thankful for her and her work.
Thank you all , Jane and Mark C.
Our son Jayden was struggling with reading and reading comprehension. He had become so frustrated that reading was not enjoyable for him and it began to affect his personality and self-image. The staff at Christenson Vision Care made him feel comfortable and understood the problems he was having. We could see improvements in his comfort and self-image almost immediately. Jayden made substantial gains during therapy and now enjoys opening a book and reading, which is a huge change from before therapy. We cannot say enough positive things about the staff at the Christenson Vision Therapy Center. Pam in particular was fantastic! Pam made Jayden comfortable with the process and kept him very motivated. Pam and Jayme were wonderful about explaining the process and answering all of our questions! Thank you Christenson Vision Therapy Center!
Tim B.
My son Jesse had a real hard time reading doing math homework and completing his school work. Jesse could not see very well. He couldn’t sound words out and he couldn’t spell. After the vision therapy program, his right lazy eye improved more than we expected. Jesse can read and write now. His learning abilities have improved; he will read now and does well. He can now spell words and sound out vowels. I am very pleased. The vision therapy program helped my son see again!
Delany W.
As a result of vision therapy, my daughter Sophia is now reading 1 level higher. Sophia was stuck on the same level since the beginning of the school year. Just 1 month after the completion of vision therapy, Sophia is making leaps and bounds with her reading success. Her self-esteem has also improved as a result of this new reading success. Pam was great to work with too. She made coming to therapy fun for Sophia. She was very patient with Sophia and was always available to answer questions about the program. We’re excited to see what the future holds for Sophia now that her eyes are teaming. I would highly recommend vision therapy because of the success we are starting to see just 1 month after completing the program.
Tanya S.
I just got a note from my daughter’s summer school teacher saying that her reading comprehension, math and confidence have improved significantly. She also has been doing word searches, which is something she never liked to do before.
Teresa W.
Vision Therapy was recommended to us when our child had difficulty comprehending in school. At first, we were unsure about it due to living over an hour away and the cost, but deciding to proceed was the best decision for Jacqui. Jacqui said “the drive was long and missing school was no fun but Pam is great and therapy was fun.” By dedicating time to vision therapy and home-therapy, we saw a drastic improvement in Jacqui’s school homework. Before therapy, we would typically see school scores of 16/24, now it is normal to see 23/24 or better! Jacqui also now loves to read books galore! Thanks CVTC!
Sheila E.
Our son was having a hard time reading. We could not figure out why he would skip words and even lines when reading. His math scores were excellent while his reading was quite poor. A friend told us about vision therapy at Christenson Vision Care. We were a little skeptical, but thought we would give it a try. I was overwhelmed at what they found and the amount of time it would take to complete the sessions. We did home therapy 5 days a week plus came to 2 session sin the clinic per week. It took time, but it was so worth it. My son is less distracted in school and can read a page with no words or lines skipped. His reading test scores went up drastically in 2 months! We are so thankful for Christenson Vision Care.
Kristen B.
We used Dr. Christenson’s Vision Therapy Program 5 years ago and returned now again that our son is older. Both times we’ve seen significant improvement in his reading level. Austin’s ability to read road signs as we drive by is a huge functional improvement that was noticeable. He also reads far more challenging words with greater speed. We never had issues with him doing his vision therapy exercises because they are so quick and easy to complete. The staff is very easy to contact and are very helpful. Everyone is good with kids and makes them feel special. The vision therapy team is great at building confidence and skills to deal with reading issues.
Jennifer J.
I knew I struggled in life to learn but I never knew why. Thanks to CVTC, Dr. Herde and Pam, my eye exam showed that I have Convergence Insufficiency. At my age, over sixty five, I was surprised to learn that there was a therapy available to help my vision. Finding out that my problem was genetic helped my self-confidence. Truly, I am a miracle of God’s grace to have graduated from college and held a job with this eye problem. It was a privilege to have vision therapy with Pam! She is a dedicated, knowledgeable, compassionate person. Her abilities far exceeded my expectations! It is extremely gratifying to know that young and old can have access to this therapy and full potential can be reached!
Cindy B. (Adult Patient)
I think that spending the money on Vision Therapy gave my child a chance at a normal life. We are a month out after graduating from therapy and Colin is still continuing to improve in reading. He was tested last month at school and his progress jumped! He read his entire math test (written word problems) by himself! This was a huge accomplishment! His confidence and behavior have improved. He no longer gets in his own way. I fell that the therapy helped his eyes to connect and re-learn how to read. His sports abilities have improved as well. The staff at Christenson, especially Amber, really helped us through a difficult time. There was constant support and advice for us. I am forever grateful. My son, who “growled” at Amber on the first day of therapy, told me that I needed to give her the “highest scores”, he was transformed.
Cindy T.
I was open to vision therapy because my double vision was so bad. I was still surprised at the results. At first, I couldn’t believe the exercises could possibly do anything. Yet, after getting a bit nauseous and dizzy after the first few sessions, I figured they had to have some power. I quickly found out that they did! Almost immediately my double vision eased a bit. Then it improved remarkably. I was also amazed at how my depth perception improved and I didn’t even know that I had a problem there. I’d had the double vision for so long, I couldn’t imagine not having it but by the end of the sessions it was gone! I was so thrilled to be able to actually see the tip of my own nose for the first time in my memory. Pam was amazing through it all.
Joan K. (Adult Patient)
I highly recommend the Vision Therapy program and Dyslexia Program (DPT). Other professionals had told me that my child would need eye surgery. Through this program, we have been able to correct my child’s vision problems without surgery. They also worked with my child’s dyslexia issues. I didn’t seek out this program for dyslexia but I was pleasantly surprised with all of the help we received with her dyslexia. My child has increased her reading level and her spelling ability. Our vision therapist was excellent at motivating my child and she enjoyed her sessions.
Jane K.
Ailee was an excellent and confident reader in kindergarten and grade one. Due to small print and many words on the pages of the chapter books in grades 2 & 3, her achievement, concentration and comprehension in reading slowed. This was visible in a reading test growth curve. I didn’t realize that tracking and other “eye-brain” issues could be the problem. I did notice that she would jump words and even lines when reading and that she became cranky and fatigued after reading for a while. She always selected, and still prefers, books with pictures/images accompanying the text, even if the reading level is much lower than her level. Pam helped Ailee and me a lot! We diligently completed the exercises from November until March of last year. I see Ailee’s reading stamina has improved. She has shown much more growth already this fall in reading and her teacher said her comprehension is very good.
Jenny N.
My Son just completed his 32 weeks of eye therapy in December and is doing great! When we first found out about his eye issues, we were not sure what to think. We knew something was wrong. He had gone through both Kindergarten and 1st grade without knowing how to read.
We kept wondering what to do, we had him with a tutor 4 times a week and nothing seemed to help. He would hold his paper or book so close to his face and he would turn his head at an angle to try and read. His frustration level was so high that he didn’t even want to look at a book.
We found out about Convergence Access and Convergence Insufficient through one of the parents in my son’s class. They had an older son who was diagnosed in 5th grade and another son in 1st grade. She gave me a list of some of the symptoms and I looked at them thinking that I wasn’t sure about all of this because we had just had him in for an eye check up and everything came out great, he has 20/20 vision. But he did not progress so we decided to get him checked out anyways at CVC.
After the testing, we received a thorough report on how he was really “seeing” things! I was so sad and happy all at the same time, sad that we didn’t know about this sooner and happy that we finally have an answer.
The treatment went really well, Pam did a fantastic job with Harrison! =-) He is in 2nd grade and is continuing to progress everyday with his ew vision. He likes to read and doesn’t hold the page close or turn his head anymore. His headaches have gone away. ead anymore. His headaches have gone away.
We would highly recommend CVC to anyone out there with a child eeding eye therapy! They were very thorough from the beginning all he way to the end. Very honest and trustworthy!
The Trautmann’s
Stillwater MN