Abstract
When our son, Ryan, was in the third grade, my husband Wallace and I discovered that his vision was so poor he
was considered legally blind. I was shocked and felt like the world’s worst parent when the optometrist informed us that
the probable reason our son was experiencing difficulty staying in his seat at school during the course of the day, was that
once he left his seat, he probably could not find it again. Since the beginning of the second grade, we had made innumerable
trips to the school because our son was having behavioral difficulties in class. He was considered disruptive during
structured learning times. His teachers described him as goodnatured, friendly and helpful to both peers and them, but he
just could not seem to stay focused during times of individual work, where he was required to read and write on his own.
For a year and a half, an undetected vision deficiency was manifesting itself as a behavioral disorder. Because he could
not see the letters nor reproduce via writing what he could not see, he created disturbances during such times in an attempt to hide his inability. Our son was being defeated by what he could not see and he feigned disinterest in what he felt he could not achieve. He felt helpless and locked out. His inability to see clearly, negatively influenced his decisions and manifested itself in non-productive behavior.