Nystagmus and Strabismus

Another Story Aspergers - "makes eye contact, accepts touches, concentration has improved, shows an increased memory, verbal communication has vastly improved."

Read this testimony of Dawson Bateman to begin to believe in miracles. To go from nystagmus and strabismus blindness to sight is surely a miracle of great worth.

Dawson Bateman

“Our son Dawson was diagnosed at age four months with nystagmus and strabismus. Since he was our eighth child, by the age of six months we also began to notice his development was sharply delayed when compared with his older siblings. After seeing a highly respected pediatric ophthalmologist, we were given no hope beyond repeated surgeries.

One doctor even told us Dawson would suffer cortical visual impairment (blindness), have physical coordination problems and learning disabilities regardless of anything we might do to try to help him.

Within a few days we met another parent whose daughter also had nystagmus and strabismus, and she encouraged us to investigate information which gave us hope. With the help of our friend and all the information we could gather, we developed a moderate home therapy program for Dawson and began working with him right away. After 3 months of this work (at age 8 months), Dawson (who had been immobile except for rolling) crept twelve feet nonstop. This gave us the incentive we needed to pursue more help for him.

After both parents attended a course in Philadelphia, Dawson was evaluated and given a program by Matthew and Carol Newell. We have pursued this program as rigorously as our large family could manage. Dawson’s abilities have skyrocketed and he is now age 28 months and has accomplished the following:

• combination walks and runs one mile nonstop, twice daily
• reads over 500 words
• identifies over 200 pictures
  speaks over 200 words and 25 two-word phrases and more each day
• is learning math quantities and beginning simple equations
• is learning to greet people properly by saying “hello” and making eye contact
• progressed from 55% of normal function at age 10 months to 96.1% of normal at age 26 months

Our family has been drawn together as we work to help Dawson. It has been hard work, which is NOT finished, but it is worth it because it is bringing success. The doctor who gave us such a negative prognosis for Dawson recently said, "Whatever you are doing, don’t stop!" We are thrilled with the miracle of Dawson's progress and will continue our work with him until he is completely well in every way -- which is something all the professional advice had said was impossible.”

Donna Bateman
Texas, U.S.A.

Learn more about nystagmus and strabismus