SanDiego Channel.com - San Diego,CA,USA
... grade," he said. By all accounts, Michael's symptoms appeared to be ADHD, but an eye exam found the real culprit. "We identified ... http://www.10news.com/health/3900820/detail.html

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As a preschool teacher, I have an opportunity to see a lot of interesting
behavior. A boy in my class a few years ago was a real puzzle.
He was above average in verbal skills...had friends in class...was creatively gifted and focused when engaged in art..he was shy on occasion, and had a pronounced fear of buttons...(?) He was alternately engaged, then restless during "transition time"...the part of the day when we read aloud, tell a story using a felt board, learn a song...etc.
He was 3 1/2...and during free play, I often found him staring through the color prisms I had purchased...holding them up to the window...looking at people through them, etc. He was one of the few who, by the end of the year, still didn't recognize his name when it was written.
One of the the highlights of any preschooler's school day, some may tell you, is when they are chosen as "a leader"...they have a special task or job assigned them in the classroom. This child often asked me, "when will it be my turn?"...and then when it was, in fact, his turn, he was often hesitant or reluctant to come forward and claim his "bear" (his name written on a piece of construction paper, that they subsequently post on the bulletin board).
I puzzled why, one day when it was his "turn", instead of walking up to the board, he rolled on his hands, elbows and knees up to the front of the class.

To skip forward and make a point here, I won't go into the family structure, cognitive testing, or additional anecdotal history of this delightful, quirky child...except to say that, in the big picture sense, he fell in the wide range of behaviors typical of children his age.

It wasn't until the next year that his Mom came to me with some information that took my breath away...
He had vision problems!
Mind you...neither his family nor I treated him badly, or judged him harshly, nor was any other negative subjective judgement made about him...but the fact that none of us realized he couldn't see properly struck me as just another reminder that even trained observers, and loving caregivers, often miss, or misunderstand, clear indicators when children have unspoken needs.

The boy couldn't see.

And he couldn't tell us he couldn't see...and in another environment, this simple fact may have caused some unfounded assumptions to be made....and, I fear, was already beginning to frustrate him...which could have had additonal impact, had it gone unnoticed.

That was just one very important life experience for me, and I thought I would share..hope someone else benefits down the line...