School-Age Vision | Hope Clinic

School Age Vision

What is School Age Vision?

It is estimated that about 80% of what we learn depends upon our visual processes; so it is important to help children acquire good vision. Without a properly functioning visual system, a child in a good school with good teachers can not be expected to perform at or near their potential in the classroom, during sports or recreational activities.

Be alert for symptoms that may indicate your child has a vision or visual processing problem:

Loses place while reading
Avoids close work
Holds reading material closer or further than normal
Has headaches
Tends to rub eyes
Turns or tilts head to use one eye only
Uses finger to keep place while reading
Omits or confuses small words when reading
Makes frequent reversals when reading or writing
Consistently performs below potential in academics and/or sports
Squints to see when no bright lights or glare
Lack of interest or avoidance of books, puzzles and other visual tasks
Closing or covering one eye often

School or Pediatric Screenings are not enough

In order to determine whether or not a child has good vision, a comprehensive vision examination is needed to determine whether or not (s)he is experiencing any of a number of vision problems. Remember, a cursory school or pediatric screening is usually simply a screening of far vision (distance visual acuity). Many children with 20/20 visual acuity have significant vision problems.

Here are the basic vision skills needed for school performance:

Near Vision, or seeing clearly and comfortably at 10-13 inches
Distance Vision, or seeing clearly and comfortably beyond arm’s reach
Eye Movement Skills, including aiming eyes accurately, moving them across a page, and shifting them quickly and accurately from one place to another
Focusing Skills, allowing one to keep both eyes accurately focused to see clearly and change focus quickly from near to far, far to near.
Peripheral Vision, being aware of things on the side while looking straight ahead
Eye/Hand Coordination, allowing one to use the eyes and the hands together to perform tasks

If these or other visual skills are lacking, your child will have to work harder.

Headaches, eye strain and fatigue are some of the possible results.

Many times, if there are developmental delays or symptoms of visual problems, a child will not grow out of them. Often they will build coping mechanisms or patterns instead. By getting your child tested in comprehensive visual skills, you will either know that your child is right on track, or that your child needs intervention. Either way, his/her needs can be met. The earlier dysfunctions are identified and treated, the less likely the individual will struggle in school and other child-centered environments such as the sports field. This also means less possible ramifications such as negative emotions, misdiagnosis of disorders such as ADD, low self-esteem, special education services, etc.

The typical screening often does not uncover developmental vision problems.

Help us help your students

20/20 does not necessarily mean good vision.

Success of Vision Therapy

It is important to receive periodic comprehensive eye exams with a Behavioral Optometrist. This should start in Infancy and throughout ones life to ensure the eyes are developing and maintaining vision properly.

If there are any developmental red flags, these can be indicative of later learning delays ahead. By improving the reception and processing of sensory information to allow for more mature patterns of response, developmental delays can be corrected with vision therapy. Regardless of age, visual inefficiencies due to immature development can be eliminated with intervention. A good pair of glasses can be the solution needed in some cases.

Foundation for Learning Laid in Infancy

Alex just loves her swing, she seems so happy just swinging for hours. Will it hurt her to let her stay there? Matthew really likes jumping and zooming in his walker. I know he can not see his legs and his feet, but isn’t this okay for him anyway? Caitlin cries when she is on her tummy. She loves watching me and playing with her hands in her baby seat, but how will she ever learn to crawl?

These are all good questions. We know babies are born with all the basic structures necessary to move, hear, see, taste, talk and smell. But how will they learn to work them, and to coordinate them to understand the messages of each sense and use them together to participate in their environment?

Read "Foundation for Learning Laid in Infancy" in its entirety