Family Vision Care

What Is Special about Children's Vision?

Vision in the broadest sense, is the global ability of the brain to extract, process and act on information presented to the eye. This complex process can be thought of as three major but related areas: visual acuity, which is largely dependent upon refractive status and eye health; visual efficiency skills, representing eye focusing, teaming, and tracking skills; and visual information processing, representing the ability to recognize and discriminate visual stimuli and to interpret them correctly based upon previous experience. Every examination, we provide for children, regardless of the child's age, has these thoughts in mind.

Infants

Our infant vision examinations start in early infancy and continuing through the school years. Although young children may not be able to read an eye chart, specialized procedures have been developed that allow us to measure the clarity of sight of children at almost any age.

Optometrists encourage parents to include a trip to the optometrist on the list of well-baby check-ups. Assessments at six to twelve months of age can determine healthy development of vision. Early detection of eye conditions is the best way to ensure a baby has healthy vision for successful development-now and in the future.

School Performance

Children who struggle to read or remain on task may have an undiagnosed vision problem. Many vision problems can be corrected more easily with early diagnosis and treatment. Reports have estimated that up to 25% of students in grades K – 6 have vision-related problems, which may contribute to poor school performance. It is important for children to have a complete eye examination before starting school.  An optometrist should evaluate whether a  child's vision is adequately prepared to handle reading, writing and other close work.  The demands of schoolwork can put too much strain on the child's vision system and cause problems when none existed before.  The visual system matures rapidly during the first few years and it is important to identify any problems that may interfere with normal vision development.

School requires children's eyes to focus on very close, small work for hours every day.  This can cause vision problems to arise.  Children don't often realize that their eyes are under too much strain, and they rarely report vision problems.  Because their vision is "normal" to them, they think everyone sees the way they do.  School vision screenings are no substitute for a complete eye examination by your family optometrist.

Eye Examinations for Infants, Toddlers and School-aged Children

A comprehensive eye examination will assess visual acuity, refractive status, ocular health, eye tracking, eye focusing, and eye teaming. Visual acuity measures how clearly a child sees objects. Refractive status measures for nearsightedness (myopia), farsightedness (hyperopia), and astigmatism. The child is evaluated for any eye health problems, including active pathology or congenital anomalies. Eye tracking is the ability of the eyes to fixate, smoothly follow and look between objects or printed words. Eye focusing is the ability to efficiently change and sustain focus while reading. Eye teaming is the ability to coordinate both eyes accurately and without fatigue or excessive effort. Accurate eye teaming is also important for accurate two-eyed depth perception or stereopsis. Early detection and management is recommended to prevent vision loss or eye disease and to provide appropriate vision development. To learn more about how the examination process differs for infant, preschool, and school-aged children visit the links.

 Hand - Eye Coordination

As part of the visual examination we also assess vision development. Young children use vision to explore the world by identifying and directing movement. If a problem in vision is preventing adequate development of perception and eye-hand coordination skills then early intervention is vital.

Call us at:   210-764-1113   for information on fees and scheduling