How Do You Get Quality Vision Care for Children?

Children rely on their vision to develop, explore, and learn as they grow. Having a vision problem can hinder this learning process. It is important to have quality vision care for children. Vision care can include having regular eye exams, receiving corrective lenses, and vision therapy. Quality vision care is as important for children as it is for adults.

Eye Exams

It is important to schedule vision care for children, including regular eye exams, to make sure they have the resources necessary for optimum growth and learning. Doctors now have state-of-the-art technology and make the experience fun and interactive for children.

The American Optometric Association (AOA) recommends that children have an eye exam when they are six months old, three years old, before first grade, and annually after that. This helps diagnose disease, injury, and vision problems before they begin to interfere with learning. Routine exams include testing for visual acuity, nearsightedness, farsightedness, amblyopia, crossed-eyes, dyslexia, and color blindness.

Signs Your Child Might Need Glasses

Here are a few signs that your child might need glasses, and should have an exam:

• Squinting. Squinting can be a sign of refractive error, which affects how well a child can focus on an object. Squinting temporarily helps the child to focus, but isn’t a long-term solution.
• Moving to sit close to the blackboard, TV, or holding gaming device close to the face. Bringing objects closer makes them bigger, and easier to see. These children may have myopia, nearsightedness, and can only see clearly when things are close up.
• Headaches or eye pain. Children who are overexerting their eyes may end up with headaches or eye pain that persists.
• Rubbing eyes. Rubbing eyes can indicate strain or fatigue for the eyes. It could also indicate allergies or other diseases.
• Covering one eye, or tilting the head. This may mean that a child might have amblyopia or lazy eye.
• Difficulty focusing on schoolwork. Children who are not able to see well can start to fall behind in schoolwork and even lose interest if it is difficult to focus.

If any of these signs are noticed, an exam with a doctor should be scheduled.

Vision Therapy

Vision Therapy is designed to help children who are struggling with learning, reading, or participating in school activities. One of the most common disorders treated with Vision Therapy is convergence disorder. This happens when the eyes do not work together as they should, which makes it difficult to focus on reading and learning. Most of these types of problems can be treated with professional therapy combined with at-home exercises.

If you notice a child reading with poor comprehension, reversing letters such as ‘b’ and ‘d’, needing extra time to complete homework, or demonstrating a short attention span when completing schoolwork, it may be helpful to talk to a doctor about vision therapy. Studies by the National Institute of Health and the Eye Institute have found that more than 60% of children with learning disabilities have undiagnosed vision problems. Correcting these vision problems can help with the learning disability.

Quality eye and vision care for children is crucial to their learning and development. Regular eye exams, corrective lenses, and vision therapy are just a few of the ways parents can help make sure their children’s eyes are functioning well and are healthy.