ANN ARBOR, MI - As parents help their children adjust to the new school year, they should add one more item to their lists: scheduling a back-to-school vision test.

According to Gary S. Sandall, M.D., a pediatric ophthalmologist at the University of Michigan Kellogg Eye Center, early vision testing and treatment for children is imperative as most eye problems can be corrected if caught early.

Children learn to see properly during the first year of life. If a serious eye problem occurs early on in a child’s development and is left untreated, the visual system will never learn to see correctly and vision may be lost permanently.

In fact, many experts believe that between 4 and 5 percent of children under the age of 12 develop serious eye problems.

“In an ideal world, all children would have their eyes tested by the time they reach one year of age,” says Sandall. “If a child is examined early on, most of these problems can be treated.”

The American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Academy of Pediatrics both recommend that infants be screened in the newborn period and during their regular pediatric appointments. Vision testing should be conducted for all children starting at 3 years of age and then each year after school begins.

“Even with these tests, parents should still watch for signs of vision problems at home. If your child is squinting a lot or having trouble reading the time on digital clock displays such as microwaves or VCRs, there could be a problem,” says Sandall.

A young child’s vision is dependent on the brain’s learning process. This learning process requires a child’s eyes to be aligned at the same target and the target to be brought into focus on the retina of each eye. If this doesn’t happen, a common, yet serious, problem called amblyopia can develop.

Amblyopia is failure of the brain to connect properly to one of the eyes. One type of amblyopia occurs when nearsightedness or farsightedness prevents both eyes from focusing at the same time. This is called anisometropia and it prevents the weaker eye from developing correctly.

“Anisometropia is very difficult to diagnose because there are no outward signs,” says Sandall. “When parents look at their child, they can’t see anything wrong because the eyes are straight.” Anisometropia, if caught early, can be treated with glasses or patching of the dominant eye.

Another type of amblyopia occurs when a child’s eyes are misaligned. This is called strabismus and is more easily noticed. Signs of strabismus include eyes that are not aligned (cross-eyed or turned outward) and eyes that don’t work together when following a target. Common treatments for strabismus include glasses, eye patches or surgery.

Parents who have questions or who would like to make an appointment for their child to have a vision test may contact the U-M Kellogg Eye Center Pediatric Ophthalmology Department at 734-764-7558.

The U-M Kellogg Eye Center is a nationally recognized center for vision care and research. As a part of the University of Michigan Health System, Kellogg attracts top funding for research to save vision, offers professional and community education, and provides routine and highly specialized eye care to some 100,000 patients each year.

Contact: Aimee S. Bergquist, 734-763-4660, aimeesb@umich.edu
U-M Kellogg Eye Center

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