YOUR CHILDS VISION
The following is an except from the Children's Vision Network.
All parents recognize how vital good vision is to their children's development. As children grow and mature, over 80% of what they learn is processed through their eyes. However, most people have a limited understanding of what good vision means. Good vision involves much more than just seeing clearly without glasses.
When most parents think about vision, they think about their child's clearness of sight, or visual acuity--in other words, the sharpness of vision as measured by the eye chart. When a child has 20/20 vision, it means that each of his eyes can see what an average person sees at a distance of 20 feet. If a child fails the eye chart test, he can get glasses or contacts to correct his blurry vision. But the eye chart's use is limited to only checking a child's distance vision.
The eye chart cannot test many other important visual skills that children need to succeed in today's modern world, especially at school. For example, the eye chart can't check how well children team or coordinate their eyes at the close up distances required for reading, how well they can track a line of print without losing their place, how well they can adjust focus changes from near to far distances, or how well they can understand and make sense of what they see. Children can have good sharpness of vision (20/20) and still have serious problems in these other areas.
The only eye test most children have is a brief screening at school which only checks their distance vision using the eye chart. Each year thousands of children suffer from undetected vision problems that can make school and life difficult. In addition, children with crossed eyes and lazy eyes face especially demanding challenges. Children with poor visual skills may struggle to read, have short attentions, perform poorly in sports, develop low self-esteem, and have doors closed to many careers because of poor visual skills.
Get your child off to a bright start this school year by making an appointment with Dr. Seymour! There is simply no substitute for a professional comprehensive eye examination.
