wldouglas23

What is the cause of her blindness? I have an eight-year-old son with LCA.

I'm trying to remember and think in what areas his development was delayed. His gross motor was never too far behind. He never did really crawl, though. He would scoot around on his bottom leading with his feet. I assumed this was a defensive thing so that he wouldn't run into things with his head. He did start walking at a relatively normal age.

He was slightly speech delayed and was in speech therapy while in early-intervention preschool. By the time he was four, he was testing out well ahead of age standards for speech, and no longer received the therapy.

He's in the third grade now, and is well ahead of grade level for reading and writing, and slightly ahead of standard for math.

My best advice is to let her go like a sighted child. She'll run into things occasionally, and get a few more bumps, scrapes and bruises. Being around other blind children at conferences, and other functions, I can immediately tell which children have had overprotective parents versus those that have not. Expose her to all of the same activities as her sighted peers. Don't be afraid, or nervous for her!

Good luck!

The FRR (Foundation of Retinal Research) may be a good resource for you, and might be able to refer you to someone for testing. I know that the Children's hospital in Cleveland is set up to test for it as well as Seattle Children's.

What is NIE?