[blindkid] Notes on Eye Poking

hpscheffer at aol.com hpscheffer at aol.com
Tue May 1 21:47:01 UTC 2012


My daughter started poking just in one eye at about 1yr old, she would look down and towards her nose somehow and dig in the back of the L eye. I was certain she was doing it because something was bothering her. Of course as we went to different eye doctors the answer was "oh, that is typical of blind children" "that is a blindism" (I dislike that word), so we kept taking her to different Drs.. even up to Cleveland for an exam under anesthesia. And what do you know, 4 years later I'm looking in the back of her eye and I saw a grey loopy thing that was a stitch. It was left in there from one of her surgeries and "forgotten". Back to a surgeon to have that removed, and when she woke from the anesthesia first thing she said "my eye doesn't bother me anymore". By then she had gotten into the habit of pocking, but eventually she broke it and does not any more. I believe had it not been for that stitch, she probably would not have ever started. She has no siblings, and is blind from ROP, has never been still so it was not boredom in her case, which was so hard to convince the Drs. of.


Heidi







-----Original Message-----
From: eleonora Desplanches <eleonora.desplanches at gmail.com>
To: Blind Kid Mailing List, (for parents of blind children) <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Tue, May 1, 2012 2:49 pm
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Notes on Eye Poking


Daphne, who has LCA, started to poke her eyes when she was just 7 weeks old
and I think that at that time she had some kind of (very limited) vision,
so I don't think it is related to a need for stimulation as Deborah said.
Sometimes she pushes with her hands/fists/toys... and sometimes (most
recently) she just pushes with her index.
For Daphne, it really looks like a reflex similar to sucking her thumb, as
Barbara said.

On 1 May 2012 18:44, "Barbara Hammel" <poetlori8 at msn.com> wrote:

It would also be interesting to know if there is a corelation between
whether eye poking happens more frequently when a child does not have older
siblings who are close in age.  Though many of my friends were eye pokers,
I do not recall ever having acquired the habit.  I tried it when my friends
got corrected but, besides the distortion of ligh when the eye was open or
the bright white light that came when the eye was closed, I never figured
out what was so fun about doing it.
I have one that pokes incessantly and one that never pokes, which is
interesting since they are twins with the same eye
condition--microophthalmia--**and both would have had ample alone time
since they were in an orphanage at eight months of age.
I suppose it's just like why do some children suck their thumb or twirl
their hair or chew their nails.
Barbara




Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance. -- Carl Sandburg
-----Original Message----- From: Richard Holloway
Sent: Tuesday, May 01, 2012 10:30 AM
To: Deborah Kent Stein ; Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind
children)
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Notes on Eye Poking



That is interesting. Kendra was not born blind, but had lost practical use
of her limited initial ...
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/**options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/**
poetlori8%40msn.com<http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/poetlori8%40msn.com>


_______________________________________________
blindkid mailing list
blindkid at nfbnet.org
http://nf...
_______________________________________________
blindkid mailing list
blindkid at nfbnet.org
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/blindkid_nfbnet.org
To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for blindkid:
http://nfbnet.org/mailman/options/blindkid_nfbnet.org/hpscheffer%40aol.com

 




More information about the BlindKid mailing list