Importance of Back to school Eye Exams

For many of us in Summit County, school starts tomorrow.  I am sure many of you are going through your checklists to make sure that you have everything ready and your kids are set up for success this next school year.  But, have you thought about having their eyes checked?

Vision impacts every part of a child's life.  It is affects their social interactions, sports, confidence and most importantly, their learning.  According to the American Optometric Association, one in five preschoolers have vision problems and by the time they enter school, one in four children need glasses.  For these children, the classroom can be a stressful and a frustrating place.  Vision is such an integral part of learning and as they progress in school, the visual demand becomes more and more difficult.

In Summit County, the schools do an amazing job at providing screenings for children.  The nurses are trained to pick up visual problems and are very good at what they do.  However, the service they provide is a screening and should not be a replacement for a complete eye exam.  One national study found that while vision screenings are very good at picking up nearsightedness, the miss 70% of visual problems and of the students that are identified as needing help, 61% never follow up with an eye doctor. 

A passed vision screening can give a false sense of security.  The information from a vision screening should be looked at like the information from a blood pressure measurement.  Those numbers can be good, yet there still can be an underlying issue.  That measurement is merely one aspect to your overall health.  A vision screening is only one aspect of your vision.  A comprehensive dilated eye exam checks all the other aspects to ensure that the eyes aren't the limiting factor to your child's learning.  

I had one child that passed all of her school screenings, was doing well at school, and only got her eyes checked because her brother was getting his done.  She was farsighted and needed glasses.  She was working so much harder than everyone else to focus and to see when she was reading, yet she was doing well.  She returned the next year and had excelled throughout the year, becoming part of the gifted and talented program.  She didn't realize that reading shouldn't be as much work for her as it was.  Eliminating that focusing problem she had lifted the limitation that she didn't even know she had.

We would love to provide your children with their comprehensive eye exam.  I have had over 10 years of experience working with pediatrics.  Start them off right this school year and stop in today!

 

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