Eye Exams in Infants: Birth - 24 Months
A baby’s visual system develops gradually over the first few months of life. They have to learn to focus and move their eyes together as a team. The brain also needs to learn how to process the visual information from the eyes to understand and interact with the world. The foundation for motor development, such as crawling, walking, and hand-eye coordination, also comes with the development of eyesight.
You can ensure that your baby is reaching milestones by keeping an eye on what is happening with your infant’s development and by ensuring that you schedule a comprehensive infant eye examination at 6 months. At this exam, the eye doctor will check that the child is seeing properly and developing on track, and look for conditions that could impair eye health or vision (such as strabismus (misalignment or crossing of the eyes), farsightedness, nearsightedness, or astigmatism).
Since there is a higher risk of eye and vision problems if your infant was born premature or is showing signs of developmental delay, your eye doctor may require more frequent visits to keep watch on his or her progress.
Eye Check-Up in Preschool Children: 2-5
The toddler and preschool years are a period when children experience rapid growth in intellectual and motor skills. During this time, they will develop the fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and perceptual abilities that will prepare them to read and write, play sports, and participate in creative activities such as drawing, sculpting, or building. This is all dependent upon good vision and visual processes.
This is the age when parents should be on the lookout for signs of lazy eye (amblyopia) - when one eye doesn’t see clearly, or crossed eyes (strabismus) - when one or both eyes turn inward or outward. The earlier these conditions are treated, the higher the success rate.
Parents should also be aware of any developmental delays involving object, number, or letter recognition, color recognition, or coordination, as the root of such problems can often be visual. If you notice your child squinting, rubbing his eyes frequently, sitting very close to the TV or reading material, or generally avoiding activities such as puzzles or coloring, it is worth a trip to see your eye doctor at Arlington Eye Center & Eyeglass Gallery.
Eye Exams in School-Aged Kids: Ages 6-18
Undetected or uncorrected vision problems can cause children and teens to suffer academically, socially, athletically, and personally. If your child is having trouble in school or after-school activities, there could be an underlying vision problem. Proper learning, motor development, reading, and many other skills are dependent upon not only good vision, but also the ability of your eyes to work together. Children who have problems with focusing, reading, teaming their eyes, or hand-eye coordination will often experience frustration and may exhibit behavioral problems as well. Often, they don’t know that the vision they are experiencing is abnormal, so they aren’t able to express that they need help.
In addition to the symptoms written above, signs of vision problems in older children include:
- Short attention span
- Headaches
- Frequent blinking
- Avoiding reading
- Tilting the head to one side
- Losing their place while reading
- Double vision
- Poor reading comprehension
The Eye Exam
In addition to basic visual acuity (distance and near vision, or refractive errors), an eye exam at Arlington Eye Center & Eyeglass Gallery may assess the following visual skills that are required for learning and mobility:
Your optometrist will also examine the area around the eye and inside the eye to check for any eye diseases or health conditions. You should tell the doctor any relevant personal history of your child, such as a premature birth, developmental delays, family history of eye problems, eye injuries, or medications the child is taking. This would also be the time to address any concerns or issues your child has that might indicate a vision problem.
