Importance of Children’s Eye Exams | Eye Doctor Miami Gardens, FL

Why Children’s Eye Exams are Important

Routine eye examinations are necessary for everyone, including children. However, many people don’t take their kids for regular eye appointments unless they complain about their sight. What they may not realize is that these examinations provide preventative measures that protect the long-term vision of your child that are just as valuable as diagnostic tools to deal with an obvious issue with the health of their eyes or their eyesight.

All children should attend annual eye exams unless recommended otherwise. The following explains why scheduling and keeping that appointment is so important.

Children need visual skills for their education

Education is vitally important, and since as much as 80% of learning in schools is represented visually, clear vision is absolutely crucial. Some of the key visual skills that children need in order to fully access their education include:

Excellent visual acuity at all distances
The ability to focus comfortably on the tasks at hand
Accurate and comfortable eye teaming skills
Proper eye movements

Many school-aged children are being diagnosed with learning difficulties because they struggle to perform well academically or are unable to pay attention for long periods of time. However, studies have found that many of these children may actually be struggling with visual difficulties. This means that they may not be able to access their learning effectively or may be unable to concentrate because they can’t see what they are looking at. This may even cause them to act out because they feel ‘dumb’ when in fact, they just have vision problems that need to be addressed and can often be easily fixed.

Children may not realize that their vision is impaired

One of the most important things to remember is that in many cases, a child may be unaware that what they are seeing isn’t ‘normal’ and that their vision could be much clearer. To them, particularly if their eyesight hasn’t changed much from what they are used to, what they see every day is perfectly normal to them. Unfortunately, this means that it could be impacting them on their day to day life without them even realizing it.

Another issue is that very young children may have not yet developed the communication skills to be able to explain that they are having problems with their vision or are experiencing symptoms such as eye pain. This can also lead to delays in diagnosis that can have long-term consequences for your child’s vision.

Good vision can benefit your child’s social skills

There can be many reasons why a child exhibits undesirable behavior. In many instances, it is because they are embarrassed about something and are trying to deflect this by drawing attention to themselves in a different way instead. Unfortunately, having poor vision can impact your child’s behavior since they may choose to act inappropriately when faced with a situation where they cannot read or see clearly, rather than admit that there is a problem. For example, a child called on to read out loud in class who has vision problems may be disruptive so as not to have to do so and highlight the fact that they are unable to perform the task. They would rather get in trouble for being naughty than admit that they are unable to read the words. By correcting vision problems, children may be less likely to act out for this reason.

Good vision is important for safety

Clear vision is also necessary for keeping your child safe. As they grow, your child needs to be able to tell the difference between colors (for things such as traffic lights or other systems that are color-coded), anticipate the speed of moving traffic, and read signs if they are to remain safe. Good vision at all distances, color vision, peripheral vision, good perception skills and more are all necessary for their safety.

Regular eye exams can help prevent eye disease

Eye diseases can affect people of any age, including children. When your child attends a regular eye exam, in addition to checking their vision, the health of their eyes will also be monitored. This will enable early signs of any eye diseases to be detected, and prompt treatment to be arranged before any damage can occur to their vision. Early detection of myopia, or near-sightedness, is also important since studies have shown that children who develop myopia are more likely to experience diseases of the eye or other ocular problems in the future. Close monitoring is the best way to protect your child from any ocular issues that could compromise their long-term eye health and vision.

If you would like more information about the importance of children’s eye exams, or to schedule an appointment, please contact our eye care team today by calling us at (305) 902-3320.