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Your child’s eyes flutter quickly from side-to-side or up-and-down
| The eyes are always watery
| The eyes are always sensitive to light
| Any change in the eyes from their usual appearance
| You see white, grayish-white, or yellow-colored material in the pupil
| There is redness in either eye that doesn’t go away in several days
| There is continued pus or crust in either eye
| The eyes look crossed, turn out, or don’t focus together
| Your child often rubs the eye
| Your child often squints
| Your child often tilts (or turns) his or her head
| The eyelid(s) appears to droop
| The eye(s) appears to bulge |
If you think you see any of the above symptoms in your child don't hesitate to contact your pediatrician. Don't take a chance with your child's vision.
The American Academy of Pediatricians advises parents to consult their pediatrician if their baby can’t make steady eye contact by two or three months of age, or seems unable to see. A constant crossing of the eyes or one eye that turns out is usually abnormal; however, most babies occasionally cross their eyes during their first six months of life.
Babies older than three months of age can follow or "track’’ a moving object with their eyes. You can test this by holding a toy or ball in front of your baby until he or she can see it. Then, slowly move it and watch as your baby’s eyes follow.
A small degree of farsightedness is normal in infants and children. Farsightedness does not interfere with vision and requires no correction. Farsighted children usually compensate for their lack of focusing power by focusing the lens inside the eye. This usually gives them perfect distance vision, and since they compensate so well they have no difficulty reading the distance eye chart in the school screening. It is only when farsightedness becomes excessive, or causes the eyes to cross, that glasses are recommended.
Common vision ailments...
nearsightedness (myopia) and farsightedness (hyperopia). Children who are "nearsighted’’ see objects close to them clearly, but objects that are far away are unclear. Nearsightedness is very rare in infants and toddlers, but becomes more common in school-age children. Eyeglasses will help clear the vision.
For the young
who cannot communicate, a number of proven techniques can be use to us
determine the quality and condition of a child's vision.
This is a Child's eye chart, designed for children too young to read.
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Children eye chart |
This chart allows children to indicate what shape the different elements are which in turn tell us how good or how poor they actually are seeing.
Each picture was chosen based on it's shape and how closely it resembles other shapes in the test.
Most importantly the child does not feel they are "right" or "wrong" when they answer. They see a house, or an apple. Based on what the actual object was we can determine their actual eyesight without making them feel foolish, for not knowing their ABC's. It more like a game!
The chart is helpful in detecting amblyopia, also known as lazy eye.
With the condition, which affects about 3 per cent of children, the visual development of one eye lags behind that of the other. Children compensate by using the good eye, and the “lazy” eye stops processing visual images. The problem is treatable until the child turns about 8 but can cause blindness beyond that time, said Christopher J. Kelly, a pediatric ophthalmologist. “The visual cortex in the back of the brain loses neurons if they’re not used.”
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Color Blindness |
Color blindness is a condition in which a person has difficulty in distinguishing colors or shades of colors.
It may be inherited or may evolve later due to problems in the lens.
Children who are having difficulties at school should be tested for vision as well as color blindness.
Unfortunately there is no treatment for color blindness and people have to
learn to recognize color by position or by brightness.
| Amblyopia, also known as "lazy eye," is reduced vision in an
eye that has not received adequate use during early childhood. Most often,
it results from either a misalignment of a child's eyes, such as crossed
eyes, or a difference in image quality between the two eyes (one eye
focusing better that the other). In both cases, one eye becomes stronger,
suppressing the image from the other. If this condition persists, the
weaker eye may become useless. |
| Strabismus exists when one eye does not aim directly at an object of interest to which the other eye is aimed. The eye turn may be present always or only occasionally, and the turn may be inward toward the nose (crossed eye) or outward toward the side (wall eye). Untreated, this condition can lead to amblyopia |
| Soon after birth, some premature infants develop changes in the blood vessels of the eye's retina that can permanently impair vision. |
| In myopia, the eyeball is too long for the normal focusing power of the eye. As a result, images of distant objects appear blurred. |
| Astigmatism results primarily from an irregular shape of the front surface of the cornea, the transparent "window" at the front of the eye. Persons with astigmatism typically see vertical lines more clearly than horizontal ones, and sometimes the reverse. |
I've also included links to other sites that might be a good source of more information.
http://www.aoanet.org/childrens-vision.html
http://www.childrensvision.com/
http://www.add-adhd.org/vision_therapy_FAQ.html
http://www.preventblindness.org/children/children_eye_tests.html
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