August is Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month
How healthy is your child’s vision? This is an appropriate question to ask anytime but especially in August during Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month.
According to Prevent Blindness America, a volunteer eye health and safety organization founded in 1908, without good vision, a child’s ability to learn about the world becomes more difficult. Vision problems affect one in 20 preschoolers and one in four school-age children. Since many vision problems begin at an early age, it is very important that children receive proper eye care. If left untreated, eye problems can worsen and lead to other serious problems as well as affect learning ability, personality, and adjustment in school.
Here are some common eye problems:
• Lazy eye, or amblyopia, is a loss of vision in an eye that is not corrected by glasses alone.
• Crossed eyes, or strabismus, describes eyes that are not straight or do not line up with each other. If not treated, it can cause lazy eye or amblyopia.
• Color deficiency or color blindness does not literally mean blind to color. Instead, children with this condition have difficulty identifying some colors.
• Nearsightedness or myopia describes the condition when the eyeball is too long for the normal focusing power of the eye. This results in images of distant objects appearing blurred.
• Farsightedness or hyperopia is the condition where the eyeball is too short for the normal focusing power of the eye. In children, the lens in the eye accommodates for this error and provides clear vision for distance and usually near viewing, but with considerable effort that often causes fatigue and sometimes crossed eyes.
• Astigmatism results primarily from an irregular shape of the front surface of the cornea. Children with astigmatism typically see vertical lines more clearly than horizontal ones, and sometimes the reverse.
What are signs that may indicate your child has a vision problem? Prevent Blindness America provides the following tips to parents:
What do your child’s eyes look like?
• Eyes do not line up where one appears crossed or looks out
• Eyelids are red-rimmed, crusted or swollen
• Eyes are watery or red (inflamed)
How does your child act?
• Rubs eyes a lot
• Closes or covers one eye
• Tilts head or thrusts head forward
• Has difficulty in reading or doing other close-up work, or holds objects close to eyes to see
• Blinks more than usual or seems cranky when doing close-up work
• Describes objects as being blurry or hard to see
• Squints eyes or frowns
What could your child say?
• “My eyes are itchy,” “My eyes are burning,” or “My eyes feel scratchy.”
• “I can’t see very well.”
• After doing close-up work, your child says “I feel dizzy,” “I have a headache” or “I feel sick/nauseous.”
• “Everything looks blurry,” or “I see double.”
According to Tiffany Sullivan, Vision Health Initiative director, this program seeks to eliminate barriers that prevent low-income, uninsured children from receiving vision care so that they can receive the full benefits of being in school. She said, “The benefit of good vision is not just being able to see the chalkboard or being able to see 20/20. Healthy vision involves being able to use one’s eyes for life. Proper vision helps a child analyze and respond to what is seen and to understand the other senses. Vision is a learned ability, and problems with vision can affect the development, adjustment and achievement of a child.”
As we observe Children’s Eye Health and Safety Month, if your child needs to be examined for vision problems, contact your child’s school nurse or try free vision screenings.
