The Oreo Experiment

I found a puzzle we’d been given by some friends a few years ago called Oreo Matching’ Middles.   They were fairly easy for my children to do so I’d put them away, saving them for kitchen play at some point in the future but when I saw them this afternoon I realized they might be good for my daughter to try to do with her vision.    Here’s what they look like:

You find the two matching halves and put the shapes together.   Finding the shapes is the first thing a child can do, then figuring out how to rotationally align them is the second thing they master.   For my daughter what makes them challenging is the lack of contrast on the non-filling side.  I was wondering how she’d do with them because while she seems to have abysmal vision in some aspects, there are other things she seems to do quite well with. 

For example, if she lost something on the floor, several months ago she was completely unable to find it unless she happened upon it.  Now, she seems to be able to visually see things in some cases, although she also uses her hands only to find things other times.    That goes with the “rapidly fluctuating vision” we’ve all noticed though. 

With the Oreo puzzle pieces, she would pick up one of the pieces like the brown-side moon and bring it about one-and-a-half inches from her left eye and just below the eye.   She’d say, “moon!” and then try and find the matching moon in the white and brown pieces.    She was able to do this with great success, even though it was necessarily slow because she couldn’t see anything from a distance and had to bring every single piece to her eye to check.  

What was surprising was her ability to see the shapes at all on the brown only sides.   What has been noticed by the visually impaired specialists and her play therapist is high contrast is easier for her to see.    Perhaps something is getting slightly better in her left eye. 

What has not changed (that I can tell) is her ability to see anything as a whole, such as a complete picture.   She does best with small items up close or very large things such as people and rooms for navigating around.    I’ll take any improvement though over her current vision. 

The Big Boy Update:  Spider-Man got killed today in our house.   My son got an inflatable Spider-Man during the week of the state fair and he’s been around and about the house ever since that week last October.   He’s about the height of my son and for some reason (don’t ask me why) there’s a squeaker inside him.    I was tidying up their play room today and the dog heard him squeak and got excited about him.   I laughed as she tried to attack him (and failed) and then I put him in the bonus room so I could keep cleaning up.   Later in the afternoon Whittaker came over and my son and he were busy doing something with swords.   After getting kicked out of the room with my daughter and Whittaker’s sister, they decided to attack Spider-Man.   I came around the corner to see them body slamming Spider-Man and taking turns seeing who could pummel him the most.    Not surprisingly, Spider-Man didn’t make it.   My son and Whittaker were rather proud of their victory over “good” I’m pretty sure.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter isn’t the most helpful when you ask her how her vision is.   Today I asked her if she was able to see things better when she was lying on her back watching the iPad.   We have to keep it at a certain distance away from her face (meaning a certain distance close to her face) for her to see things.   Typically it’s between one and three inches.   Today I thought she might have had me adjust it a little further away.   When I asked if she could see better she told me, “yes” but that may have been her telling me what she thinks I want to hear.