Downtown Vision Centre has been amazing to us. They are WONDERFUL. Krista is absolutely incredible. She has a gift for working with children. She is so positive, fun, and responsive. She was able to patiently redirect my kiddo while explaining things to him and answering his questions. She made vision therapy fun, set up different active challenges for him, and always had ideas for how he could change things up and do them differently. He looked forward to going to therapy each week and wanted to do his best for her. She noticed his strengths and commented on them and helped him see his own talents.
This was so important to me as a mom of bright kiddo who has faced some barriers that made traditional learning very difficult. She remembered what he is interested in and incorporated games (we loved the games!), mazes, and fun things into the homework. When something didn’t work for him, she found things that did. She noticed his hard work and effort and commented on it. She was always kind and positive, even if we were having a rough day. Krista is also excellent at giving really good feedback, could tell right away if he wasn’t doing the exercise correctly and was able to help me, mom, who is NOT good at such things and probably needs to go to vision therapy too, figure out how to help him do the exercise correctly and be a good homework coach. We always left feeling better and in a better mood than when we arrived, even when she was sending us home with tough homework!
When we started vision therapy, we had been through 1.5 years of different types of therapies and my kiddo was finally able to identify letters and numbers, which was huge but learning to read was still really, really hard due to his significant visual barriers. Vision therapy helped him so much in learning to read. We could actually notice the difference from month to month in his reading as we progressed in vision therapy, which was very motivating.
Now, less than 2 years later, he is an avid reader, and has just finished the third Harry Potter book and understood what was happening. He also had a lot of trouble with numbers before vision therapy, making math really tricky. As he progressed in vision therapy, we felt confident enough to tackle math. We are now working to catch up to his grade in math and in the last six months of vision therapy, he was able to complete an entire year curriculum of math AND do some of the math work with his grade in school. Vision therapy has been absolutely transformational for my child. I do not think that his amazing academic improvement would have been possible without vision therapy.
Dr. Medeski is caring, committed, passionate, and knowledgeable about vision therapy. I really appreciated having the option of doing a few extra months of light therapy after finishing the traditional vision therapy to help him with the last little bit of progress he needed to make. I also appreciated that she answered all of our questions and explained exactly what she was doing, and how the therapies work. I also appreciated her positive and growth-oriented attitude towards our kiddo.
To any parent considering vision therapy, I would absolutely say that it is worth the time, effort, and money. To any parent who is worried about their kiddo being too wiggly or unfocused or off-task or uninterested, I would say that in our experience, these are not hindrances to getting started and that we found that interest and motivation increased as he could see improvement in what he was able to do. Also, it was really helpful for my son to be able to identify and talk about what was making it so hard for him to learn to read and to do the math. It was not because he wasn’t capable but that he had specific medical challenges that were treatable.
And as we helped his brain and eyes work together through vision therapy, those challenges could be eliminated. And, of course, our son was able to see the difference himself in his ability to read, which helped him keep working at the exercises and believe in himself, in his academic potential, and his ability to be successful in school. And the positive, fun, and welcoming environment helped him enjoy the process and push through the hard parts. And Krista is simply exceptional at engaging children.
We considered vision therapy to be a priority and an investment in our son’s future and it has already paid off. It has been transformative. I cannot recommend Krista, Dr. Medeski, and Downtown Vision Centre highly enough. They are wonderful! We are so grateful.
Recommendation from the patient:
When I started vision therapy, I was just learning to read at age 8. Now, I’m on the fifth Harry Potter Book. Thank you for making reading easier. Patient, age 10
Call Downtown Vision Centre on 360-694-6541 to schedule an eye exam with our Vancouver optometrist. Alternatively, book an appointment online here CLICK FOR AN APPOINTMENT
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