Childrens Vision
Is your child ready for school in taking on new challenges? In answering this question few statistics pop to mind. Approximately 1 in 4 Australian children are suffering from an undetected vision problem (source Optometrists Association Research division OAA 2016).In a typical classroom of say 26 students approximately 6 will have vision type problems which exclude them from reaching their full learning potential.
You probably read about uncorrected myopia, astigmatism or significant hyperopia. There is however a little more to visual information acquisition and processing than having corrective lenses. Children can have ocular misalignment problems, where both eyes don’t synergistically coordinate together well, some may get double vision or assume an unusual head posture to align their eyes. Eyes may not track well on a page, so skipping from word to word as they read can be problematic for them. The consequence is they lose their reference point as they read, and start to fall behind at school.
We must not forget there is a whole cascade of information processing the child’s brain endures. Whilst they see information, they may have problems embedding visual information in their memory, or may have challenges recalling what they saw. Kids can struggle with sequencing arrays of letters, numbers, may reverse letters or numbers and so on.
It may be difficult for parents to be good detectives, perhaps some teachers may assist with reporting their observations, and there is no denying that one practitioner will sort it all out for you. We are certainly here to help.
Written by Dr Chris (Optometrist) as Riverside Eye Care