Babies With Glasses - The site for families of babies, infants and kids with glasses

Hope,

My daughter was 4 months old when she was prescribed glasses. She had a very hard time with eye contact, and seemed, like your daughter, to only smile at voices. She experienced developmental delay in several areas. Although her cognitive skills were above average, her motor skills were several months behind, along with her speech. She has been in the early intervention program since 12 months. Her therapies include physical, occupational, speech, developmental and vision. All of her therapist said that visually impaired babies are at risk for delays because we fall in love with the world through our eyes. I was also told that visually impaired babies can develop autistic tendencies when not worked with properly. She is now doing VERY well (with the help of not only therapy, but 2 surgeries and glasses). She didn't walk until 19 months (with the help of leg braces), but she is definitly making up for all the lost time. There is a wonderful center in St. Louis, where I live, that provides support groups for parents and siblings of blind and visually impaired children. They are also the group that provides vision therapy for my daughter. Maybe there's a group like that near you. Good luck with everything, I know how VERY hard it is to deal with all this.

Thank you very much for your e-mail. At least I know that everything will please God improve in time. Unfortunately I do not have any support groups or the excellent therapists you have. I am living in Ireland and we are finding it difficult to get physiotherapy and occupational therapy. We have been told we must wait to see if our baby is priority for these therapies. It is heartbreaking when she can not crawl or roll at 10 months. The good news is that she is making an effort to do these things since she got her glasses so hopefully the next few weeks will make a big difference. Thanks again for your positive response.