Your child's vision is essential. Unfortunately, children don't often know their vision is impaired. If the world has always appeared blurry, how do they know different?
Studies suggest that nearly 80% of learning occurs visually. If a child can't see and nobody knows (especially the teacher), how can we expect optimum academic performance?
Athletic performance can also be adversely impacted by vision problems. Even if their vision is not blurred, a child with limited depth perception may experience frustration with certain activity (e.g. - catching a ball). The inability to "judge distance" also increases the risk of injury.
Certain vision disorders, such as amblyopia (commonly know as "lazy eye") can result in permanent visual loss if not detected and treated early in life.
Vision problems can occur at any age. Vision disorders that are not detected and treated during the development of the vision center of the brain (age 9) can lead to permanent visual loss. In fact, amblyopia is the leading cause of monocular blindness in people under 45.
You can help protect your children's vision by looking for obvious signs such as squinting, bumping into furniture, inability to read, frequent headaches, etc. However, the absence of these signs does NOT mean that your child's vision is normal. Ask your child's school if they conduct annual vision screenings.
