If you or your husband is extremely near-sighted or far-sighted, the chances are very high that your child will be too. The child will probably need glasses by the time he or she is in middle school. The child may not know that he has vision problems since he probably don’t know the difference between clear and blurry vision. You must catch these problems early.
It is recommended by the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the American Association for Pediatric Ophthalmology that children get screened very early on with pre-k reqiurements being put in place to check vision as well as other eye disorders. If at the screening your pediatrician detects a disorder, a comprehension eye exam will be performed by an ophthalmologist.
Here are some frequent problems that affect children and symptoms to look for. Near sightedness or myopia is a condition when your child seems to be squinting while he looks at an object that is far away. He might even say he has a hard time seeing the chalkboard at school. Notice whether he squints while watching TV. Sometimes eyes that are longer than normal causes light to focus in correctly on the retina. This can cause your child to have trouble seeing objects at a distance. In most cases it is inherited. It can develop early if you do close work like working on the computer. It usually develops in the fourth or fifth grade years. Treatment is fairly simple. If the child’s sight is not clear enough to do his work or play in sports, he’ll need glasses. If the child is under 4 and have mild near sightedness, he probably won’t need glasses. Everything at this age will always be up close such as toys and food.
With farsightedness or hyperopia, you check to see if your child squints or rubs eyes a lot when looking at things up close. You may notice when he’s reading, drawing, or playing on the computer, he doesn’t stay focused. He may have an ye that is shorter in it’s diameter that the other. The size is smaller which prevents light from creating clear pictures on the retina. This causes the near objects to appear blurry. Many babies are born slightly farsighted. They adapt though with time. If they are more far-sighted than usual and no treated, it can develop into lazy eye or cross eyes. These can seriously impair the child’s vision. The treatment is to wear glasses all the time.
Astigmatism is when your child needs to turns his head left or right in order to see the TV or confuse letter Y with V or G with O. This condition is caused by cornea that is shaped more like an oval than a ball. It runs in families. Kids have trouble seeing at any distance. Most of the time it will happen at birth. It can also exist with far- sightedness. It can also develop later on with near -sightedness. If the condition is severe, your child will need glasses.
Cross-eyed or strabismus is when your child’s eyes are unaligned. This condition is due to a problem with the movement portion of the child’s brain. When the child’s eye is pointed inward, is cross-eyed. If it is pointed outward, up, or down, it is called wall eye. Glasses can fix it if it related to farsightedness. Most will need surgery on the muscles surrounding the eye.
With lazy eye or amblyopia, one eye will turn in or out. When the eyes are not in unison, the brain starts favoring the eye that is clearer or aimed at a targeted direction. It can start during infancy. It usually has shown up by the age of 5. Get you child glasses to correct any associated eye problems. He may need to wear a patch over one eye with less vision. There are also drops that can be used to blur the favored eye.
