Dear Jillian: Vision Therapy Changed My Life Too

by Robin Benoit, Jillian Benoit

Soon after "Jillian's Story: Vision Therapy Changed My Daughter's Life" was published in 2010, Robin Benoit and her daughter, Jillian, began getting emails from all around the world from people excited to share their vision therapy success. Faced with the controversial and troubling fact that many people do not know about vision therapy -- or worse, are told it does not work, Robin and Jillian embarked on a second book to share the stories of 22 people, adults and children, who found that vision therapy changed their lives. The book shares examples of how vision therapy helped those struggling with autism, Down syndrome, stroke, sports-related concussion, traumatic brain injury, polyneuritis, anxiety, learning problems and vision problems such as amblyopia, strabismus and convergence insufficiency.

150 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 2013

Reviews

[Angela Burkholder]

In Dear Jillian: Vision Therapy Changed My Life Too, mom Robin and daughter Jillian collaborate to share stories of nearly two dozen individuals who have been positively impacted by vision therapy. Robin and Jillian’s contagious passion for vision therapy stems from personal experience—Jillian was diagnosed with amblyopia at age 5 and didn’t find real help until undergoing vision therapy. Her story was covered in their previous book, Jillian’s Story: How Vision Therapy Changed My Daughter’s Life, which I have not read.

The writing was not extremely well polished, and the chapter format seemed a bit odd. (Each chapter concluded with 14-year-old Jillian’s thoughts about the individual and story in focus. I found this to be rather repetitive—she sometimes repeated things that her mom had already said, and her thoughts from person to person were quite similar.) However, Robin and Jillian’s aforementioned passion for the topic helped keep the book engaging.

Because of my personal history of visual processing problems, I felt a lot of empathy for the twenty-two people whose stories were shared in this book. Their success stories prove that vision therapy works. Along with the Benoits, I feel strongly that more parents, teachers, and even optometrists must be made aware of the crippling effect of visual processing issues, which often manifest as learning or behavioral struggles, and be informed of the viability of vision therapy as a treatment option.

While the book describes some vision/processing problems and therapy techniques, it is not a textbook on visual issues and their treatments. Rather, its primary emphasis is on the impact of vision therapy on people’s lives. I found Dear Jillian to be a convincing, relatively short read for anyone interested in—or skeptical of—vision therapy.

[Mcvill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Proud to be a part of this book!