[tri-med] Re: Christmas Lights as Stimulation

Hello Cindy :o)
Not sure if I've introduced myself yet...but I'm
Penny..yada...yada...yada...(just look at my signature tag lest I get
redundant :O) Devon has many vision issues...he has micro cornea, micro
opthalmia (shallow orbits and small eyeballs...left larger than the right),
bilateral colobomas (because if their placement he has no lower field of
vision), retinal dysplagia (incomplete retina-rt eye...so he is blind in the
right one)...and cataracts...not sure what else..feels like I'm forgetting
something??? Devon has been getting vision services starting at 7 months
old. The christmas lights were something his vision teacher had us do...in a
zig zag pattern to encourage tracking...he reccommended no twinkling lights
(or fast moving lights of any kind) because it makes for a very busy,
confusing time focusing and can also cause a siezure on any child who even
might be predisposed for them. We also made a light box out of a card board
box lined with black construction paper. The lights would be arranged in the
back and sides of the box and then plain old satin medium christmas
ball/ornaments hung from the top in either a graduated angle or a zig zag.
The purpose of the way the lights and ornaments were done was to encourage
him to examine first the balls and then the lights or vice versa...to
illustrate/encourage depth perception because Devon has no depth perception.
Devon still loves lights of any kind :o) My husband does christmas lights
inside the house just for the boys because of this...sometimes he just does
a zig zag pattern all the way around the room (kinda in the middle of the
wall all the way around)...or one time her did a kind of city scape
thing...it was an outline done in lights of what looked like buildings. And
of course he adores the christmas tree :o) We also used to do different
patterns on a lite brite for him to look at :o)

I also did a big mural in Devon's room with Pooh, Piglet, Tigger, Eeyore,
Evinrude, TinkerBell spreading fairy dust, and Sebastian the crab...the
whole thing has a  big rainbow  over the whole thing :o) Also on his walls
are 2 dalmation puppies...one is positioned by the doorway looking over it's
shoulder winking and the other is under the window standing on it's hind
legs looking out the window. There are the bluebirds from Cinderella  and a
Pooh with his head in a honey pot and 2 Blues Clues pups as well. In my
humble opinion it's pretty cute and Devon seems to enjoy it too :o)
Love,
Penny...devoted wife to Joe and "Mom" to Nick (10 1/2 yrs...lover of
Pokemon, Legos, Pizza, cheese sticks and chocolate icecream ) and "Mommy" to
Devon (AKA-Stinky Boy..or Devonrude...Lover of Bear, Stuart Little, Barney,
Blue, Rolie Polie Olie, Pooh and Co. and food in general, 6 years old
(6-15-95) !!! Full Trisomy 13 w/balanced translocation 5 and 13)...Brat and
KC (the feline children)
:o) DeLand, Florida
Meet our family at http://www.trisomyonline.org/victor.htm  (Compliments of
my dear friend Karen!)
And last but not least, check out the homepage I made!
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Shores/1963/index.html
The stone that was rejected by the builders, has become the cornerstone
(Psalm 118)
>

                  Building ___ooOOoo__ Rainbows
                       www.trisomyonline.org
                  Families Helping Families On-line

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